Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

While I've been called the baby of Tauranga City Council, I'm old enough to have seen some of my childhood snacks either reinvent themselves or cease production all together.

It seems like everything has a natural lifecycle of prosperity and eventual decline. Even the mighty All Blacks were arguably stuck in a four-year performance cycle, with a history of peaking the year before a Rugby World Cup was held.

What does this have to do with Tauranga City Council? Well, even the council goes through its own lifecycle. During the last decade, council has swung like a pendulum from financially liberal, to more conservative (well, attempted conservatism).

Hopefully, the new council will consider a smarter approach to delivering community prosperity by creating better value for your investment. I believe the council should stop swinging like a pendulum from liberal to conservative – and back again. Let's move forward instead.

Tauranga has experienced a period of low investment in its arts and cultural scene. But let's not swing the pendulum towards liberal expenditure in this area too fast, too quickly.

Don't get me wrong, I love what smart investment into the sector has done to revitalise communities in similar positions to Tauranga. Let's take the time to find out why the community has stood up to try to make the Summerfest youth music festival happen. Let's work through a Public Arts Policy to find out how the community can support artists to deliver the right artworks in the right places.

It's not ‘all hui and no doey' though. Council's new community development committee is looking to support neighbourhoods to take ownership of their local spaces. For example, the committee may look to support local communities in designing, building and looking after their playgrounds, parks and community centres.

Just like the All Blacks did at the 2011 Rugby World Cup, our council needs to break its cycle too. But we won't get it right every time. Even a big-brand chocolate company recently got it wrong when it used palm oil in its products. They tried to keep their costs low for its customers, but neglected their customers' values and expectations. (And, the company's market research budget is much larger than council's consultation budget).

Let's stay focused on the outcomes we want to achieve in the community. Let's work together to find the most cost-effective way to achieve them.