Feb 2024 We invite you to complete the survey below regarding the performance of Tauranga City Council and the Commissioners. Currently the Commissioners are pushing forward the next ten year Long Term Plan with undue haste and not publically revealing the true costs that the ratepayers will need to fund. It is important to know the feelings of the community. Your reply will help to determine our dialogue with Tauranga City Council.  This survey is open to all residents of Tauranga.

There are a number of game changing decisions the Commissioners and Tauranga City Council are making which will have a big impact on your rates bill and the quality of life you expect in Tauranga. UPDATED April 2022 Since the LTP (Long Term Plan) was finalised in 2021, the Commissioners have gone on an additional unbudgeted spending spree, potentially committing the ratepayers to $ 500 million plus of new expenditure. Read the concern of Auditor General  - July 2022

The Commissioners have had their term extended by 21 months to 2024 by Minister Mahuta. Read the letter the commissioners sent to Minister Mahuta telling of the wonderful job they are doing in Tauranga and changing the fabric of Tauranga ( really doing the Minister’s bidding).

May 2022 New Multi Use Arena being proposed for Tauranga Domain COST $170 million ++

This is a proposal between Priority One and TCC to build a multiuse arena for 8 - 12000 people in Tauranga Domain without any public consultation. Tauranga Domain is the Central Park of downtown Tauranga, this open green space with views to the Mount is home to many community sporting groups (tennis, bowls, croquet, cricket, athletics, school sports, rugby) and has the only all weather athletics track on this side of the Kaimais. Tauranga City has a future plan for 30,000 people to live in the Te Papa peninsula and around this green space park. The community sports clubs will be an important part of this community and must not have a multiuse arena built there and destroying the green space. Maybe Tauranga needs a multiuse arena but in a better location which has parking and easy transport corridors. Email Commissioner Anne Tolley with your views. . Read more and more details…

1) Links Ave Trial  initial Closure Nov 2021 and now another trial until end of July 2022

Links Ave has been closed with dire traffic gridlock on Oceanbeach Rd and the inconvenience to the local residents. Traffic is also being diverted onto SH29A with more gridlock. This decision to close Links Ave was made by Brendan Bisley Transport director at Tauranga City Council. Call him on 07 577 7000 and tell him what you think or email brendan.bisley@tauranga.govt.nz Please click through and complete the online petition. There is no commonsense reason to do another trial unless the idea is to smash the community into accepting a full time closure of Links Ave.

2) New City Centre Precinct April 2022 Tauranga City COST $325 million ++

Out of left field the commissioners are adding a city centre precinct to the Long Term Plan 2021-2031. The costs range up to $300 million plus for a rehash of a 10 year old plan and the schemes are priced on rough sketches with no detailed plans. The plan will provide a library, a small museum/exhibition area, a whare, lots of paving stones to the water and a new small wharf. The Commissioners plan to use the 3 Waters bribe the government has offered each council as part of 3 Waters to pay for a small part ($48 million). What they are not telling you is that “if they accept the 3 Waters bribe they can not publically speak out against the 3 Waters scheme.” See comments by residents. May 2022 — Public submissions are complete and there was a most amazing conclusion by the Commissioners on the public submissions. Click for more

3) Infrastructure Funding and Finance

You will hear the commissioners talking about this borrowing vehicle which allows councils to borrow from private funds and it does not sit on the council official list of debt. ????? So it looks like the commissioners have not borrowed more when in fact they have. However DEBT is DEBT and the only people who pay back Tauranga Council’s debt are the ratepayers and as you know each year the rates are going up by 10% plus. The Commissioners wish to use IFF for The Transport System Plan and development of the infrastructure of Tauriko West. Remember, private lenders will want very high rates of interest to lend money for 30 years, much above the traditional lenders to councils. And we will all pay for this folly.

4) 3 Waters

This is still live and the government is working behind the scenes to make it happen, however flawed, non democratic and expensive it is. The Tauranga Commissioners are saying nothing about whether Tauranga Council will join. Once they have accepted the money (bribe) as item 2 they can then legally say that they can say nothing. Read more

5) Tauranga City Representational Review

The Commissioners convinced the Local Government Commission that the concept of 8 single wards, a Maori ward and an at-large mayor is the best options for Tauranga. The Commissioners ignored the reults of the online TCC poll claiming the majority of the participants were male 65 years and older, European and lived in Papamoa and therefore are not representative of the community and their submissions were excluded. View the clip below.

5) He PuaPua

The secret Labour goverment agenda to destroy the concept of one person one vote and create a plural governance and society. This continues and can be seen happening in our daily lives.

OLDER NEWS

Dealing with Backsliders — Michael Bassett ( vaccination commentary) Click to read

Tauranga City Representational Review ( the process to select councillor and mayor model was flawed. ) There is still time to make a submission. Read here.

• Three Waters Reform Program

• 28/10 Local Government Minister Mahuta announces that participation in 3 Waters is compulsory. So much for voluntary participation as originally announced. This is the start of a plural governance structure in NZ. For the whole plan of introducing “apartheid” in NZ read He PuaPua. Join the pushback — watch this space.

• A Government that imposes Three Waters is a DICTATORSHIP.

• Representation Review for Local Democracy in the future.

• The Cameron Road “futureproofing” project

• What kind of Tauranga do we want in 5 years time, 10 years time.

These decisions are being made by government appointed representatives without any local and democratic input. (The Government dismissed our local elected council and we no longer have local democracy in Tauranga. Instead we have Government appointed representatives called commissioners). Sure, they say they are listening, and we agree the commissioners are out and about, but are they “hearing” the views and voices of the local ratepayers and community? We think NOT.

Tauranga Ratepayers Alliance has formed to work for the community in this void. One of the first tasks is to educate the community of what is happening and then to collect their views and comments. To collect your views and opinions there will be a series of ONLINE FEEDBACK SURVEYS.

The first survey off the rank is “TAURANGA THREE WATERS REFORM PROGRAM ”. Go directly to the online survey >>

This is essentially the government taking over control of all water infrastructure, (fresh, sewage, storm), all the assets in New Zealand and creating four national entities to control and manage water. The holding companies will have a board with an equal number of iwi and appointed government representatives. Tauranga water will be controlled from Hamilton. Local control will be removed. Tauranga City Council has assets of around $1.6 billion in water, paid for by you, the ratepayer and the Government is just going to take your investment and assets with the government only paying $48 million. These assets belong to the ratepayer. Why is the Government doing this? A very good question.

Tauranga’s Three waters are not broken, it is a very good system with good levels of investment. You may remember when all the power generation was in government control and then it was privatised and now look at the power prices. Could the end result be the same scenario. Is water being set up and packaged to be sold?

What happens next?

Presently signing up to this scheme is voluntary and many Local Bodies are opting out. Local Authorities have until 30 September 2021 to signal to the Government their community views and say if they are opting in or out. What are the community views in Tauranga? How much information has Tauranga City Council provided to the ratepayer? Have you had the opportunity to be informed and heard ? What is your feedback.

At last count, only six of our 67 district and city councils have indicated a desire to opt in to the reform programme, relinquishing control of their water infrastructure to four mega-regional entities. Tauranga is one of the few who are indicating opt-in.

This online survey is to gather your feedback and comments and present them to the Commissioners. What is the groundswell in Tauranga?

Click here to go further information and the THREE WATERS SURVEY Tauranga