Top Three Priorities For 2024

This post is taken from an audience question at the Papamoa Residents and Ratepayers (PRRA) meeting for Arataki Ward candidates on Monday 10th of June (I have paraphrased the question).

What are your top three priorities for the first six months after the election

There is a lot of work for the incoming council to do. My top three priorities would be as follows.

Review The Commissioners Decisions

Review and examine all of the decisions made by the commissioners, including all contracts. Decide which decisions need to be changed. With the contracts, evaluate the costs of continuing the contracts, versus the costs of cancelling or amending the contracts, and whether the contracts make sense. We won’t know the full extent of what the commissioners have committed Tauranga to, until after the election. Then we will have full access to all of the information, including the contracts.

The commissioners have committed Tauranga City to over one billion dollars in capital spending for the city center. Tauranga can not afford that. I would review all of the city center contracts, and where possible I would stop those contracts and enter into negotiation with the contractors. There will be penalties, so we would have to determine whether it would be viable to stop a particular contract, or whether we should continue with the contract. Some contracts will be too far progressed so that it is impractical to stop them. Other contracts can be stopped with minimal costs. For some contracts we might be able to change the contract scope.

For any contracts which have been stopped part way through, there will be a further process to decide on any remedial action or alternatives. Any alternative contract should be awarded by competitive bidding. Most of the city center contracts were awarded without competitive bidding, and seem to be wildly more expensive than they should be. We need to minimise any further disruption to the city center. (NOTE: the Willis Bond contract is very restrictive on what council can do – thank you Larry Baldock)

I would establish a review committee to manage and control council reviews, so that they are independent of the council staff. Recommendations would be referred back to the Mayor and Councillors, and the chief executive. Reviews would be able to be requested by the council, council committees and sub committees, the chief executive, or the Mayor. The review committee would engage an appropriate team of specialists to conduct each review.

Review And Restructure The Council

The council organisation needs to be reviewed and restructured to make it more efficient and cost effective. The review would be managed and controlled by the review committee (see above).

The council restructuring will be a long term process to improve council cost effectiveness. The staff culture has been lost, and it will take years to restore it. Restructuring needs to be done carefully without interrupting council operations.

We need a proper independent review of Bella Vista, the parking building, and the Cameron Road stage one fiasco, again managed by the review committee. Dan Russel suggests including the leaky homes debacle as well. Ratepayers are still in the dark about what happened.

Tauranga Council has for years had a reputation for having a toxic work environment, and being a poor employer. Council has a legal obligation under the LGA to be a good employer. Council employment relations and the work environment should be reviewed .

Council controlled organisations should also be reviewed . They should only exist if they provide clear benefits to the rate payers. Otherwise, they should be wound up and their operations returned to council.

The previous review and observer team recommended the following (observer team report November 16 2020).

establishing a more effective and better resourced Office of the Mayor

governance training for the elected members

a revised protocol for elected members asking for information

These recommendations should be implemented by the new council.

Amend The Long Term Plan

The current long term plan needs to be reviewed and amended, taking into account any decisions and contracts which have been changed as a result of the reviews above.

The amended long term plan needs to take full account of the changes in three waters legislation. We should also take another look at PC33, the housing intensification plan.

The amended long term plan must have better community consultation.