Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

This week was the start of council's new financial year. It's a great opportunity for you to hear from a different representative on council. This week I've asked Mount Maunganui/Papamoa ward councillor Clayton Mitchell to share his thoughts with you.

Thanks Matt, I have to say how pleased I am with the calibre of our elected members and how cohesively we have been working together to come up with, for the most part, the best possible outcomes for a city we all love so much.

With regards the Annual Plan, in my opinion we didn't get it 100 per cent right, but we did manage some positive outcomes overall.

One example is the overall reduction in debt and some significant savings in operational expenditure.

On the other hand an area where we had the right intention, but slightly missed the mark, is the decision to raise the tolls on Route K, to help reduce the ever-increasing $62 million of debt. We overlooked the changes to Vehicle Type Charges and inadvertently disenfranchised some of our road users by larger than expected toll increases for them.

Starting the ‘City Vision' process is essential for this new council, as it will give us clear direction moving forward. During this process we identified and came up with three pillars to focus on.

The first is a ‘Talented and innovative city full of opportunity' – which is a fancy way of saying we're going to give a high priority to economic growth and development.

Because of this we've given serious consideration to and voted favourably on the Tauranga Marine Precinct and given the go ahead to the Tertiary Institute, both of which I consider to be good steps in the right direction.

The second area of focus for our ‘vision' is to create a city with ‘Heart and soul' – which basically means we want to create a positive and vibrant city with real community connectivity.

Subsequently, we've set up a Community Development Committee with a $50,000 Community Development Match Fund for local projects and we've also considerably increased our city event budget.

The third area is to ‘Enhance our places, spaces and environment' – in line with this we'll be looking at walk and cycle way initiatives and The Strand waterfront development, to name two things to consider in the upcoming long-term plan.

Please email Clayton your feedback:clayton.mitchell@tauranga.govt.nz