Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

When I was an athlete, a deep tissue sports massage was a painful but necessary exercise to recharge the muscles for the next event.

The new council is similarly kneading its kneading its knuckles into the budget to limber up our finances for next year.

For example, we're proposing to get more from our popular sports grounds, by improving lighting for evening use. This is a more cost-effective approach than creating new sports grounds in our growing suburbs. It's what accountants call ‘sweating assets'. We're digging down to ensure new projects are only delivered when current assets have reached their maximum use.

Our draft Annual Plan will list the key changes for you to tell us what you think.

Just the beginning for decisions on libraries

The Greerton Library development is massaged into the draft budget, but only if we can sell other properties to pay for construction. The costs of operating the new facility also need to be found within the existing library budget. Other services will be impacted to achieve this. We'll outline options in the draft plan for the Greerton community and the city's library users to inform the trade-offs we'll need to finalise in June.

Fixing stormwater

The city is playing catch-up for decades of under-investment in stormwater projects in our older suburbs. This is why we need good rationale when delaying funding of other core assets, so we don't fix one issue but create another issue in 20 years' time.

We're proposing a 4.7 per cent stormwater levy on your rates to fund the stormwater projects using ‘cash', rather than using loans. This was a split decision between councillors; and we need your feedback. The levy will provide a further $5 million on top of the current $5.5 million loan each year.

Fixing the city's stormwater issues is likely to cost more than $200 million and take more than 10 years to complete (if we continue the levy). We need to do our due diligence to make sure the investment of public funds is responsible. The analysis will be finished later this year.

The causes of flooding are complex. After the priority suburbs are agreed, we'll work with individual properties to find out what should the public fund, verses what individuals may need to fund. We want this issue sorted, but we need to do it once and do it right.

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.