City vision compared to a 'dead rat'

Mayor Stuart Crosby has defended the plan.

A bid to give Tauranga a new vision and direction has been attacked as a "dead rat" that councillors have have had to swallow.

The comparison to a rodent was made by Councillor Gail McIntosh at a recent meeting in which the council voted 4-3 to adopt the vision.

Cr McIntosh said it was Mayor Stuart Crosby's promise, not the councils. "It has been bad from day one and the sooner we get over it the better."

The brief debate and vote took place immediately after Mr Crosby and Councillor Clayton Mitchell had temporarily left the meeting to answer media questions about the $62 million Route K debt being taken over by the New Zealand Transport Agency.

Both had previously supported the vision, along with Councillor Matt Cowley who was not present for the debate because of his late arrival at the meeting. Rather than Councillor John Robson continuing with his opposition to the process, he abstained from voting so it did not end up being 4-4 and acting chairman Kelvin Clout having the casting vote.

The vote was a messy conclusion to a process started by Cr Crosby as one of the planks of his re-election campaign. He wanted to give the city a new vision and direction and to counter comments that Tauranga was a city without a soul.

Supporting were councillors Clout, Bev Edlin, Bill Grainger and Steve Morris. Opposed were councillors McIntosh, Rick Curach and Catherine Stewart.

Cr Stewart was concerned about the cost of implementing the outcomes saying they did not have an open cheque book.

Opposition to the vision was more pronounced at an earlier meeting when Cr Stewart complained that the wider community had not been included in the consultation. The vision had been drafted after consultation with community and business leaders and tangata whenua.

She was told there would be further community engagement when the vision was implemented through the 10-year plan.

Cr McIntosh said it looked like the council had not even considered the financial implications. Cr Robson was concerned about the quality of the underlying work done by an agency commissioned to do the work. Using Google, he found that bullet points about what the city vision set out to achieve had been taken from a public sector organisation website.

Mr Crosby defended the work, telling the Bay of Plenty Times yesterday that the consultant had used generic wording often in vision statements.

Quizzed whether the vision was a bit of a damp squib, he said the three key elements would guide the council. Sitting behind the statements was a lot of work that would be released later this year. He said the council had decided on a soft launch rather than a big- bang approach.

The three pillars of Tauranga's city vision

• A talented and innovative city full of opportunity.
• A city with heart and soul.
• A city of great spaces, places and environments.