At Transportation Taskforce committee meeting we were brought up-to-date on fine-tuning for the new interchange roundabout at Brookfield.

There will be some fine tuning on road marking but the main issue to be addressed is access into the supermarket off Bellevue Rd and from Otumoetai Rd. The right turn on Bellevue Rd into the supermarket by Brookfield shops is to be removed within the next four weeks. It is a crash situation waiting to happen, with too short a lane for traffic to stack up on Bellevue Rd. Access from Otumoetai Rd, unless you use the service lane by the petrol station, means driving right around the roundabout/traffic lights. This unnecessarily puts more traffic into the interchange, so staff are investigating options. These problems were foreseen but it was decided to get the roundabout complex finished and let some people who were unconvinced actually see the problems first hand, which is where we're at now. Consultation, democracy and all that is all very well but where traffic engineering is concerned, amateurs are best left on the sideline.

Carless future for cash starved roads
Elected members were told that there will be a City Pathways Link as part of the National Cycleway network. This is to encourage cycling and means pedestrians and cyclists sharing some of the walkways around town. Pedestrians have right of way. Central Government will give a 75% subsidy on cycling initiatives, which on the proposed $4 million budget over the next few years means ratepayers will still have to cough up $1 million. On the one hand it can be argued that this is an investment for a carless future, on the other it could be argued that the $4 million would be better invested in our cash-starved roading system.
The Central Corridor Link from Welcome Bay through Hairini, along Turret Rd and up 15th Ave is now called the Hairini Link and planning has gone up a gear as this project gathers momentum. It will still be a six year time span.

Future of indoor sports
At Projects and Services Committee, CEO Stephen Town told us the proposed Indoor Sport and Exhibition Centre project is marking time pending sourcing of external funding – some $9 million. Then of course there is the small matter of $6 million from development contributions which have slowed up drastically. Council is between a rock and a hard place over this.
The Mount Action Centre (MAC) is a leased warehouse with about four years left to go. We are likely to get a very attractive price for a new facility at the moment – but – and it's a big but – if we haven't got the money organised, what can we do? A $25 million input requirement from ratepayers will put rates up by around 5% if it gets built. If it doesn't, Tauranga could end up with very minimal indoor sports facilities.

Lack of interest in public input
Public Consultation meetings about the 10 year/annual plan have not invoked much public participation. Likewise the flow of written submissions is on a par with other years. It's hard to figure if it's a lack of interest or a resignation to the perceived inevitably of it all that's at the root of this low public input.

Extra waste in stormy weather
Staff gave us an update on results of investigations into stormwater entry into the wastewater system. This means a doubling and sometimes trebling of volumes going through the treatment stations in stormy weather. Tye Park and Esk St areas were the target areas. Of 800 homes in the Tye Park area, 230 homes or 29% were allowing stormwater into the wastewater system through gully traps, or worse, through deliberate illegal connections. (A gully trap is that grating outside where your sink, bathroom and laundry water exits your home. Toilet connections are fully enclosed and a separate connection.) If we can get cooperation to fix this inflow it will save millions in capital expenditure for the future and consequently less rates.
Graeme Dohnt and his stormwater team are using their initiative and experience to track these problems down and have ceased using smoke in the pipes, an expensive procedure, and are tapping pipes and listening for the ping at the manhole. I kid you not. Simple and effective. Of course you have to have a suitably tuned ear. Something like the Wheeltappers and Shunters from TV a lot of years ago! Don't laugh. They've reduced their investigative budget from $273,000 down to $90,000. Well done! If we are to become ‘sustainable' rating-wise, then there has to be a whole lot more of this mode of operation.

Good food, company and music
The Easter Jazz Festival was a wonderful event for Tauranga. Lots of people. Many visitors, good food, good company, great music, all mixed with young and old, and alcohol as well. There was little trouble and I'm very pleased with this outcome as I was one who lobbied for this sort of liberalisation over my time on Council. The naysayers from the moral high ground (which was really the low ground) held this back for a long time with dire predictions of doom, gloom and despair if alcohol, young people and music were allowed to mix in public. It was a real pleasure to sit in the sun on The Strand with family, nana, mum, dad and two grandies enjoying a drink and listening to the music. Shame on the doomcasters of yesteryear.

Conflicts of interest
Last week at Strategy and Policy Committee there was discussion about appointment of directors to Council Controlled Organisations (CCO's) – an appalling misnomer foisted on Council by Central Government. Mike Baker raised the issue of conflicts of interest and cited Tauranga City Aquatics director Frances Denz, who is also a TECT trustee.
Ms Denz publicly states opposition to TECT allocating money to anyone other than the individual TECT beneficiaries but Baywave received large TECT support. Mike said that there was a perceived conflict here, if not a real conflict of interest. But Ms Denz's appointment was confirmed by Council in confidential, so if there is a problem in future appointments perhaps Council needs to learn from experience and be more alert to possibilities.