A recent report to the city's Monitoring Committee predicts that by June 20 next year council's September 2007 purchase of the Baypark Stadium will have resulted in accumulated losses approaching $1,000,000.

But for anyone who took an interest in the machinations leading up to the speedway stadium buyout in the name of the city's ratepayers, it comes as no surprised that this particular 'business venture' has turned out to be a lemon.

But that loss is likely to turn out to be just the beginning. All the economic indicators now point to this second-hand City Hall Iconic Tower status symbol 'moving forward' to become an overburdened tree of very sour lemons. Lemons which eventually the city's cheque-writing ratepayers are very likely going to have to swallow, whither they like sour lemons or not.

It happened this way: Just before the local body elections about this time last year City Hall, with its CEO Stephen Town and Mayor Stuart Crosby in the vanguard of all the action, engineered the purchase of the Baypark Stadium complex from Bob Clarkson, a local mover and shaker who at the time was also our local member of parliament.

I say 'engineered' because throughout the entire process the CEO and the Mayor ran the show because councillors agreed to a mayoral request that he and the CEO be given full delegation of powers to get it done.

To make things more interesting, MP Bob Clarkson and Mayor Stuart Crosby are, and were then, speedway-racing enthusiasts. Apparently feeling he may just have a slight conflict of interest, Mayor Stuart, for the duration of the protracted pre-purchase negotiations, did set aside his petrol head tendencies, resigning from the club and it seems parking his speed machine on blocks.

However, many years ago the pair had together been involved in council/private business. Then Deputy Mayor Stuart was chairman of the airport committee when developer Bob successfully tendered for the airport commercial land leases.

Consequently, they both had a fair idea of their respective needs and wants. Certainly, Builder Bob once held mayoral candidate, then Cr and Deputy Mayor Stuart, in high regard. What is clear and incontestable is that Mr Clarkson financially supported candidate Stuart's unsuccessful tilt at the mayoralty during the 2001 local body elections.

And so the Stephen, Stuart and Bob team went into secret huddle mode.

Even at the meeting at which the decision to purchase was finally approved, councillors were not given the opportunity to carefully study a confidential report setting out the viability of the Baypark operation at that time.

My information is that the report, including the crucial 'Due Diligence' conclusions, was prepared by an Auckland legal office which worked in close consultation with City Hall staff. The City Services Manager and the CEO presented the report to councillors. No one from the Auckland law firm actually making the investigation into the Stadium's books was present, thus there was no-one to answer questions or explain the glowing predictions.

Staff placed the bulky report in front of councillors at about 6pm, after a full day's meeting on other matters. The mayor, acting on the advice of the CEO, refused a request from Deputy Mayor David Stewart for a few days adjournment to allow councillors to study the report. The reason given was business 'sensitivity'. There could be other buyers. Although, in hindsight, it is hard to visualise a queue of people lining up to buy a speedway stadium -especially when there were already indicators aplenty that the city and its ratepayer funders were heading into an economic firestorm.

The daily press reported at that time that Mayor Stuart did give Cr Stewart the option of putting the meeting on pause while Cr Stewart did his homework. The CEO, though, made it clear that the document was not to leave the room and that a decision would be made before the close of the meeting, even if it took all night. In short order councillors sealed the deal which saw cheque-writing ratepayers saddled with underwriting a $2,000,000 down payment to Bob Clarkson plus signing up for a five-year, $10,000,000 loan - at 5 or 7.5 percent, depending on who you talk to.

And in my book, these losses are just for starters. At the time, I proffered my opinion to a couple of councillors that their decision would come back to haunt them. And so it has - to the extent of recorded loss over the first nine months trading under City Hall direction, and predicated loss during the present financial year amounting to more than $1,000,000.

At least one councillor notes that much of the loss is just a paper entry covering depreciation write-downs for the 21-month period. But there can be no doubt that right now the corporate box income is missing, as is the naming rights income and the sponsorship income. A million dollars at least. My guess is that the Stadium could turn out to be Tauranga's most expensive City Hall Iconic Town status symbol project ever.

Councillors, please desist from rubber-stamping risk-prone business deals.