Former Tauranga mayor Stuart Crosby blames successors for wasting millions

Former Tauranga mayor now Bay of Plenty regional councillor and president of Local Government New Zealand Stuart Crosby. Photo / NZME

A former Tauranga mayor has launched an attack on his two successors, saying it should never have taken so long to relocate and redevelop the city's civic precinct, and he believes "poor governance and poor leadership" is to blame.

Local Government New Zealand president Stuart Crosby's criticism is echoed by the city's lead commissioner and one former mayor but disputed by another.

Last Friday, Tauranga City Council announced its library and customer service centre would temporarily relocate to the Goddards Shopping Centre and its Willow St site would be demolished and rebuilt. It comes seven years after toxic black mould was found in the council's administration building, prompting the need to move.

Crosby, who was mayor from 2004 to 2016, said one of the last things he did when he left the role was to advise the incoming council to set up a separate working party to execute plans to reestablish the council and library in a new building.

"I was fearful then that ongoing politics would drag it out and there would be no progress. Post-2016, that's exactly what happened. There was a constant reworking of what should happen," he said.

Former Tauranga mayor Tenby Powell. Photo / NZME

Crosby, who is also a Bay of Plenty Regional Council elected member, said last week's decision "should have happened a long time ago".

"There was political procrastination from the end of 2016 from when I left through to the commission. That has cost the CBD and ratepayers a lot of money and a lot of time."

Crosby estimated the cost to be in the tens of millions of dollars.

He said he believed councils during the past five years never understood collective responsibility and struggled to make high-level strategic decisions. All he saw was a constant debate about where a proposed museum, administration centre, and library should be, he claimed.

"Post-2016, what I saw was disruptive governance, not making critical decisions and accepting these decisions had to be made. They were still arguing over Greerton or the Phoenix carpark.

"That's one of the reasons they are not there today."

Crosby said the CBD needed support and the move to Goddards arcade, and eventual relocation of staff on to Devonport Rd, would help regenerate the area.

"I support the decision but this should've happened a long time ago. It was, in my view, poor governance and poor leadership overall that created the situation we now find ourselves in."

Former Tauranga mayor Greg Brownless. Photo / NZME

Commission chairwoman Anne Tolley also took aim at former councils.

Asked why it had taken so long for the council to progress the relocation, Tolley said: "That's part of the reason we have commissioners in place of the council.

"These sorts of decisions just weren't being made by the council for whatever reason."

Tenby Powell, the last publicly elected mayor of Tauranga, said Tolley's comments were "absolutely right", and he did not dispute Crosby's.

"This is why I ran for the mayoralty, to break the stranglehold of the councillors that couldn't make decisions."

Powell, who resigned in November, referred to the division that, in his opinion, seeped into the council following the last local body elections.

"People of Tauranga wanted us to get on and make decisions but of course we couldn't make decisions for the city because whatever came out of my mouth was opposed.

"Everybody could see this was the right thing to do for the city and residents. This is why we have commissioners."

Powell said this relocation and redevelopment would "pour massive investment into the city".

"History will show that at this time, because of what's happened, the city went ahead."

Commissioners were appointed in February to act in place of the city's ousted councillors due to concerns the elected members would be unable to deliver an adequate 2021-2031 Long-term Plan.

Former Tauranga mayor Greg Brownless said it was easy for someone "who isn't accountable to the public" to make a decision.

"You don't have that same tension. It's not all about being reelected; it's about taking into account what the community wants," he said.

Tauranga City Council commission chairwoman Anne Tolley. Photo / NZME

Brownless, who was mayor from 2016 to 2019, said the council he was part of made a decision for a new building "but there were differences of opinion in the right way to go".

Brownless said he was opposed to the prospect of selling council land to developers such as Willis Bond and Co only to have them build a property the council would then lease from them. Such a notion "was crazy" but the majority of the Brownless council voted for this at the time.

In response to Crosby's comments, Brownless said the incoming 2016 council, of which he presided as mayor, set up the City Transformation Committee to progress civic precinct plans. However, he confirmed potential locations "were still under debate".

"One of the elements of democracy is that there is a diverse range of opinions. It is easy for an appointed commission to make decisions with no democratic checks and balances, and no disagreement," he said.

Brownless disputed his council was exclusively to blame for inadequate governance.

"Political procrastination started well before 2016," he said.

"We were beset with issues left over from previous administrations."

Brownless said it was important when comparing a commission to a council "that no mayor has ever had the absolute power to act without regard to elected councillors, that the commission has".

"With democratic diversity often comes healthy disagreement."