CEO proposes $70k funding to 'keep museum conversation alive'

Tauranga City Council chief executive Marty Grenfell. Photo / George Novak

A $70,000 lifeline may be offered to keep the conversation about a museum for Tauranga alive.

The 2019-20 funding has been proposed by new Tauranga City Council chief executive Marty Grenfell.

Grenfell, who started in the top job a few months after the council decided in May not to fund its most recent museum proposal - a $55 million build on Cliff Rd; council contribution capped at $15m - following a year of investigations, surveys, planning and debate.

It was not the first museum proposal to fail to get off the ground in Tauranga.

Grenfell said his assessment of the situation was that conversations about a Tauranga to date had focused on where to put it and how much to spend "rather than whether we need one and how that would work".

He said there were still many in the community who believed a city of Tauranga's size needed somewhere to store and display its taonga.

"I wanted to signal to the community that the conversation about the museum is something we need to keep alive."

He said the funding would be used to bring stakeholders together to continue the debate.

Councillor Catherine Stewart, who voted against funding the museum, called for the funding to be pulled out of next year's draft budget.

"We have heard these discussions for the last 10 years."

She said the council needed to find other ways of displaying the city's collection of heritage objects.

The council will continue its discussions about the draft Annual Plan in 2019.