And please do not come up with comments on how beautiful the waterfront there is, or how it is the jewel in Tauranga's crown.
It isn't. It is boring and, while the vista from The Strand is okay, it is beaten by any other parts of this city that get a view of water and Mauao.
I would really like to see a list of "places I have travelled" from people who reckon the CBD waterfront is stunning and I will bet $10 to $100 they have never been to Sydney, Hong Kong, San Francisco or Vietnam's Ha Long Bay.
Anyway, while Tauranga's ratepayers are battered and bruised, we can all praise the Lord we are not in Auckland - although they do have a fabulous harbour.
I mean, aside from having Len Brown as mayor, their rates rise faster than the temperatures on a hot February day.
That debt-laden, but still profligate, city council is the main culprit, but recently the Government called upon Aucklanders to help pay for the unwanted SkyCity Convention Centre, which has had a budget blowout of $130 million.
Isn't it amusing that when things are going okay private enterprise wants authorities to stay out of the way, but when extra dosh is needed they are the first to call on the public purse?
The council, sensibly, has opposed the move and that will not please the Government.
In my opinion, the mob in Wellington likes to have its own way and will try to remove any obstacles to its idea of market forces rule.
And some of the biggest obstacles are councils that want to do the right things by their cities and regions. They are thorns in the side of what Government calls progress; opponents call it unlimited development.
In 2015, there are only two things to be concerned about and the Rugby World Cup is not one of them!
What we need to focus on are unexciting, but terribly important, proposals to change local government and the Resource Management Act.
I wrote about the attack on the RMA a few weeks ago and now I reckon we need to focus on pushes to amalgamate local councils.
Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa are soon deciding on amalgamations - the former of its city and regional councils - and the latter on whether they get incorporated into Greater Wellington.
And there is a push to join all the councils in the Bay together. You can see various politicians and vested interests positioning themselves to either lead, or make money out of, an amalgamation.
You see, by amalgamating local bodies in a region then the Government will, by default, do away with regional councils and neatly bypass their special legislative status and power to protect the environment.
One person who agrees with me is Bay of Plenty regional councillor Doug Owens, who says the Government wants to strip the RMA in favour of development.
Cr Owens said regional councils are the country's main environmental bodies and without them there would be "no environmental monitoring, no water monitoring, nothing except the RMA".
The RMA that the Government is trying to weaken.
"We are just holding on environmentally with regional councils. Without them, we go down a slippery slope very quickly," he said.
Now supporters of amalgamation will point to large cost savings that will be made. That hasn't happened in Auckland. It has cost ratepayers millions to date and will continue to do so.
No lesser person than Stephen Town, former chief executive of Tauranga City Council and now Auckland's boss, said here late last year that councils should not have any expectation there would be any savings or a reduction in rates.
No savings. No reduction in rates. If, as has been suggested, councils in the Bay merge, amalgamate, fuse, whatever, the cost will be paid for by ratepayers.
And you can guarantee it will not be a cheap process.
In 2008, the Queensland Government budgeted $30 million in assistance for councils to amalgamate, but the actual costs were more than $210 million.
We should watch the amalgamation debate very carefully and monitor who says what, because I reckon vested interests will be those pushing the change barrow.
Ask yourself what is in it for them.
-Richard@richardmoore.com
Richard Moore is an award-winning Western Bay journalist and photographer.
