Tauranga's Ken Evans has set up an online petition to give people the chance to vote on whether they want the city's $21 million museum to be built or not.
Mr Evans' Tauranga Issues Committee (TIC) has posted the petition because it believes the upcoming telephone survey on
the controversial project will not be extensive enough and will not give an accurate assessment of public opinion.
In the survey, residents will be called randomly from the electoral role from November 10-24, with the responses of 1000 people being submitted to the city council on December 6.
The findings will then be thrashed out at a council meeting on December 14 when a final decision will be taken on whether to press ahead with the museum and also where to build it.
But Mr Evans, the founder of TIC, believes the consultation will be flawed because only a "small" proportion of city ratepayers will be asked for their views.
Mr Evans has set up two petitions, for those either opposing or supporting a museum.
He has challenged residents to either support the project or oppose it and will present his findings to the council after the phone survey's results are revealed.
"If there are 70,000 eligible voters, how on Earth can 1000 responses be justified? What we are saying is that we want to people to consider all of the aspects," Mr Evans said. "We are just trying to facilitate easy access on this issue. The website will allow people to have their say at no cost."
Mr Evans said he planned to post more petitions online covering important issues in the city.
However, Tauranga Mayor Stuart Crosby has defended a telephone survey.
Mayor Crosby said the accuracy of the survey would be far greater than the online one Mr Evans had set up and would give a fair representation of opinions.
This month councillors voted 7-3 for a telephone survey costing $25,000 - dumping a previous option of a $120,000 referendum.
- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES
