The public consultation process (which seems to go on and on, it does) over Council's proposed annual/10 year plan has received just over 1200 written submissions.

These are presently being collated by staff (destroying many trees in the process – as required by Central Government legislation) and will be deliberated on after hearing verbal submitters, starting Monday May 11 and winding up June 23 with the formal striking of next years rate.
You could hardly excuse the system of rushing when you consider elected members got a draft of the draft annual/10 year plan for ‘light' reading just before Christmas. Absolutely nothing gets done quickly – by Government design – in local government. Sometimes, more often than not, it's very frustrating going through the all-important process over what should be straightforward decisions.
At the public meetings held recently the overwhelming message I heard was, with one exception, that this Council was on the right track. A balance of keeping things ticking over, an acknowledgement that we were between a rock and a hard place over such matters like stormwater, wastewater and Southern Pipeline, and quite strong objection to ratepayer social spending on the likes of the Art Gallery, Creative Tauranga and the museum. For the record Art Gallery and Creative Tauranga spending is subject to contract (reviewable every three years) and there is NO proposed budget for any new museum in the 10 year plan. The existing museum budget is to maintain the collection, such as it is, pending any recommendation from the committee chaired by Jon Mayson on the future direction of heritage matters.
One unsolicited email I received from a constituent (reprinted below) I thought addressed the situation in a commonsense manner and represented the views of some of those who don't make formal submissions to Council's process.

Considering all the different views
The matter of the Indoor Sport and Exhibition Centre generated a bit of comment at our public meetings. There was some misunderstanding of the situation.

Avoiding long term pain
Here's how I see it at present. Council has a rented warehouse at the Mount called Mount Action Centre (MAC). Its lease expires 2014 and is unlikely to be renewed as cargo storage is a more lucrative tenancy. With the economic downturn, Council is likely to receive a very favourable tender price to build a purpose built structure. So whilst it will be a short term gain to do nothing, it will be at the expense of long term pain.

Not a numbers game
It's a vexed question – what to do – and we will be looking at what submitters say. With 1200 plus submitters, we will also be considering the interests of the other 114,800 who didn't submit. This isn't a numbers game the consultative process! On the one hand an increased rate requirement of around $50 a ratepayer; on the other hand worthwhile potential construction savings and a multi user attraction facility.

What is ‘essential'?
Is this ‘essential spending' or should Tauranga not have such a facility? For the pundits who are rushing for their pens, no, this is not a plug one way or other, it's just to outline the consequences and options. No matter what is decided, there will be consequences.
Talking about consequences (or lack of them) the matter of penalties for graffiti criminals came up at Monitoring Committee. I've been away for a few days and wasn't there but I understand Greg Brownless, Mike Baker and others raised the issue of four graffiti miscreants up before the court being penalised $82.50 and 'undisclosed community work”.
Wayne Moultrie, a lawyer who worked in Hong Kong for a long time, said Greg and others were 'middle aged mandarins”. Wayne would know how effective the mandarin system is. Count me in there too.

Cost to ratepayers
It's true we don't know the situation surrounding the crime and criminals. But we do know what they did. We know this curse is costing ratepayers $300,000 or around $6 a ratepayer. If these criminals went around each house in the city and stole $6, they would probably get jail. The effect of what they do is the same in that if there were no graffiti then ratepayers would be $6 better off.

Consequences of crime
If judges' houses were defaced, they would have a different view. I recall a judge in Auckland who was viciously attacked in court by a criminal with a machete. An awful thing to happen, but it took this sort of act to focus on the victims and consequences of crime.
There's far too much understanding for the crims and no where near enough for the victims and consequences and the lynch pin are the judges, who have a wide range of penalties available to them. It's time they got tough. These criminals have rights but apparently little or no responsibility to go with it.