Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

One of life's most frustrating things is when someone imposes their great idea on you when you're already busy doing something else. Like when I cook dinner for my flatmates, but one of them brings home takeaways – assuming my meal is going to be a disaster.

It's the same when the council looks to support our young people. Rather than imposing our ideas, I see the council as being an enabler of those agencies and groups specifically designed to cater to the young.

It's a bit like having someone untangle the kinks in the garden hose. Our youth are better served by the council injecting resources or skills in specific areas of need, rather than superimposing a youth council that may only meet a couple of times a year.

Tauranga has previously had a youth council, but it wasn't an effective use of resources for a range of reasons. Council currently budgets $20,000 each year for supporting youth-related projects. It also applies for government funding for specific projects.

As a facilitator, council can work alongside each of the groups to identify opportunities and areas of duplication, and improve communication for everyone involved.

Our collective goal should be to help young people discover their talent and provide pathways so they can make a living in Tauranga using it.

Our charitable tenants

The council is one of the largest landlords in Tauranga with a range of clubs, charities and commercial businesses leasing our buildings and land. It raises the question: When does council consider the overall community benefit when we set our own budget?

Most people want their donations to charities to go towards frontline services, rather than it going towards administrative costs. If we increase the rent to make council's books look better, then the charities need to divert funding away from frontline services to pay for the increase in overheads.

When council sets its rental fees during the annual plan, I'll be in favour of keeping the rents for charities and clubs to recover our costs only. However, commercial businesses should pay market rental rates.

Another councillor raised an interesting question: Are there other charities or clubs that would better utilise each lease? As the council builds our long term plan, we need to be assured the community is getting the most out of its investments.

Feel free to email me your thoughts (matt.cowley@tauranga.govt.nz), call/text me on 027 6989 548, and follow me at www.facebook.com/a.younger.voice