Question: What's long, unnecessarily complicated and ill-suited to its primary function?
Answer: The process taken by Tauranga City Council to adopt a new name for its controversial redevelopment of the old Phoenix carpark.
The name, Te Papa O Ngā Manu Porotakataka, meaning "the place of circling birds" was adopted in the tragi-comedy that was 2018's last full council meeting, ahead of a blessing for the park scheduled for Friday.
The elected members got creative in their attempts to find a way out from between the rock and hard place they had created by first approving the name then sending it out for a hurried and ill-conceived public consultation.
It generated an entirely predictable negative reaction that left them with the option of offending either their iwi partners or their voting public.