10-year plan goes behind closed doors

Councillor Bill Grainger said they were just flicking around points of view.

The long awaited public debate on Tauranga City Council's plans for the next 10 years could be slimmed down after four open meetings were "cancelled" in favour of more confidential briefings.

It has left January 29, and February 3 and 5 as the remaining scheduled days for the council to make decisions on the draft 2015-25 plan and budget.

Mayor Stuart Crosby said the council opted for more briefings after it asked staff late last year to separate out the costs of Tauranga's growth from the "business as usual" costs of running the city. Ratepayers would see how growth-related activities drove the balance sheet.

The other issue driving the decision to have more briefings was that some of the background documents that made up the council's holiday reading had not been comprehensive enough.

Mr Crosby said the disruption to staff from the discovery of toxic mould might have had a small impact on the flow of information to the council.

Quizzed on why the council had cancelled meetings to make way for briefings, rather than postpone them, Mr Crosby said there might be a couple more meeting dates added.

He said briefings were to make sure there was sufficient information for the council to make informed decisions, with different councillors requiring different amounts of information.

Councillor Gail McIntosh said their holiday reading was not as extensive as it would have been if staff had not been moving around as a result of the mould.

Staff were working under difficult circumstances and some of the work did not come to fruition as quickly as it could have done if the mould had not been discovered.

Councillor John Robson said Tauranga had a council that, for the first time, was insisting on quality information for evidence-based decision making. "There is less personal stuff and principled stands and playing to an audience."

He defended briefings, saying that when people voted for a council they wanted a watertight organisation that did not run into reefs. If briefings were seen as helping to deliver a more effective and efficient council without name calling and silliness, then people would support them. "I stand by them."

Councillor Bill Grainger said they were just flicking around points of view and staff were more at ease because the media was not there.

Briefings were an opportunity for councillors to toss things around informally. If they were held in front of the media, then the public could get the wrong message about where the council was coming from, he said.