Mayor pooh-poohs $16,000 cost of removing bird droppings

Birds pooping on seats in Tauranga's downtown can rest easily after the city council decided against scaring them off their perches.
The council has opted against taking any radical measures to combat the problem of people having to be careful about where they sat down.
There was little support for the suggestion to trial a bird scaring device, similar to a system used successfully against fruit bats in Melbourne's Botanic Gardens.
It involved finding a noise frequency that was unpleasant to birds but inaudible _ or at least not unpleasant _ to humans.
Ornithologists are seeing more birds in the downtown as food supplies increase with the rise in popularity of al fresco cafe dining.
Mayor Stuart Crosby said birds pooping was part of what happened in an inner city. If the seats got really messy, then they should be washed, but not at the $16,000 a year quoted to regularly clean the 33 worst affected seats.
Cr David Stewart said the amount seemed over the top. If a seat was dirty, all it needed was a quick wipe.
Strategic planner Jeremy Boase said that since Monday's article was published in the Bay of Plenty Times about the issue, he had received a call from someone wanting to clean the seats for "significantly less" than $16,000.
Mr Boase said that although there were health risks from bird droppings, such as sparrows being carriers of salmonella, he did not know of any occasion where illness had been traced to the seats.