As expected, an informal meeting between elected members and staff produced a realistic way forward as the hard facts were laid bare.

Peeling back all the argy bargy carry on over the Pick 6 inspired Notice of Motion requiring staff to come up with another $2.5 million of rates savings, the Pick 6 councillors with Bill Grainger and minus Hayden Evans appeared to come away with a better understanding of council's financial situation.

Fiddling consequences
It's not clear how savings were to have been achieved as the notice of motion included no loss of levels of service and no increase in user fees amongst other restrictions. CEO Stephen Town told the meeting in no uncertain terms the consequences of ‘fiddling' with the rates increase (of around 10 per cent) for the coming year.
He said any ‘savings' should go on debt reduction. He said there were no more cuts he could make without affecting/reducing levels of service. With everyone present except Mayor Stuart Crosby, who was at another meeting and Hayden Evans, we went through the draft budget together with staff looking for anything that could be cut. There's not much a majority wanted to touch.

Higher fees?
The Pick 6 initiated proposal to increase library user fees is included in the figures of the draft budget and the CEO said that if this didn't go through there would have to be about another one per cent added into the rating mix. There have been murmurings from Pick 6 that maybe the user fees proposal shouldn't go in the draft as pressure from users comes on. Nothing is definite until the rates are stuck in mid June, but it looks as if the speed wobbles are already setting in. After all, it is election year.

Keeping it clear costs
Most people seem to want council's present levels of service to continue as is, and the city kept ticking over. One department with the possibility of significant reduction is Open Spaces. No, not some elected member's head, but parks, reserves etc. It's a $17 million cost and some thought there may be room to cut here. It will be considered, but it's been the subject of scrutiny recently and the level of service agreed. The risk you run with cuts is spoiling the ship of a ha'penth worth of tar, to quote an old cliché. Not cutting the grass to suitable length can render spaces unusable for example.

Picking teams
The Bay Times are up to their old tricks of news creation again. In last Friday's paper John Cousins reported Bill Grainger phoning the Times 'to complain about the King Lions who fired the shots. He did not refute the suggestion (presumably from John Cousins) that he was talking about an A and B team on council.”
Once again never letting the facts get in the way of a good story he failed to report that there is only one team on council and that is Pick 6. The rest of us were elected as individuals.
The reporter could have gone on and asked Bill Grainger if he had now taken Hayden Evans membership of Pick 6 as he had signed the Pick 6 Notice of Motion and Hayden hadn't! This sort of reporting creates division, puts words in people's mouths and is good for nothing other than creating another story in tomorrow's paper.

No surprises
For those of us who did put in the hard yards over the January recess none of what happened was surprising. Whilst I'm not naive enough to believe there's not fat left in the budget I am satisfied it's pretty lean, especially compared to most other council budgets. This council has got its priorities in better shape than the past in my view. None of which will be comfort to ratepayers struggling to pay rates which government acknowledges are unsustainable. Local government is the meat in the sandwich.

Tree talk
At strategy and policy committee, elected members spent 40 minutes on a petition from Cliff Road residents seeking removal of a Pohutukawa tree. If they can produce two independent arborists' opinions that it is a menace, it will go. City hall arborists think it is not a danger short term.
Another tree, this time a fast growing gum tree at Rosberg Place will get the chop – only 10 minutes debate. Both trees will be replaced if/when they go.
Environment BOP gave a presentation on the 'Regional Policy Statement” or RPS. What's that? I hear the call from ratepayer land. It's an inaptly named regional plan just like the city's town plan that controls how, when and where growth can occur.

User friendly names
I asked that a more friendly name be introduced so that non planning people (most of us) would better understand what might affect them. In some instances it's not until you go to do something you become aware that the rules have changed and it's too late after the event.

Underground care
A long overdue initiative from council is about to commence. It's a stormwater pollution prevention bylaw. There are 626km of underground stormwater pipes, 75km of open drains, 100 stormwater ponds, 140 hectares of stormwater reserve and over 800 outlets into the harbour.
Long overdue control of the nasties that end up in the harbour it has the potential to be an extremely expensive undertaking. But if we are serious about our environment we have to stop and/or filter the nasties being transported around in the stormwater.

Get priorities right
These are priorities that should have taken precedence over social spending. Just how it will be paid for is scary. Bylaws that apply to private industry and commerce will equally apply to council and ratepayers are the obvious target.