Tauranga councillors Hautapu Baker, Kevin Schuler, Rick Curach, Hemi Rolleston, mayor Mah\u00e9 Drysdale, deputy mayor Jen Scoular, Marten Rozeboom, Steve Morris, Glen Crowther and Rod Taylor. Photo \/ Alisha Evans<\/p>\n
Drysdale rated himself a nine for enabling a cohesive governance team. <\/p>\n
He said he was proud of how they worked together, but delivering was the challenge. <\/p>\n
The hardest part of the past year was how long it took to start delivering projects, he said.<\/p>\n
Four councillors rated Drysdale a seven, three an eight, and Morris gave him another 10 for enabling a cohesive governance team.<\/p>\n
Councillor Hautapu Baker gave a seven and said the occasional disconnection between staff and councillors meant more work was needed.<\/p>\n
He suggested a paintball or dodgeball tournament between the councillors and executive leadership team.<\/p>\n
Councillor Rod Taylor said \u201cthe team of 10\u2033 had been tested a few times, but genuinely wanted to work well together. <\/p>\n
For fiscal management and rates affordability<\/a>, Drysdale rated himself a six.<\/p>\n His lowest rating was a four from Crowther, who said this was a collective responsibility, not just the mayor\u2019s.<\/p>\n The members were asked to rate how the group was doing in four areas. <\/p>\n For creating a vibrant city<\/a>, Drysdale rated the council an eight. Most gave it a six or seven. <\/p>\n Morris rated it a six and said the city was \u201cmore than spending [money] on a couple of hectares downtown\u201d.<\/p>\n Drysdale gave the council an eight for community engagement and improving public opinion of the council. Councillors\u2019 ratings ranged from five to eight.<\/p>\n Baker gave a six; he said efforts were improving, but gaining trust took time. What he heard from the community and what \u201ctranspired online\u201d was \u201cchallenging\u201d, because they were \u201cextreme ends of the same spectrum\u201d.<\/p>\n Relationships with other councils had the most range. Two councillors rated it a four, Drysdale rated it a seven, and the highest rating was eight.<\/p>\n Crowther said the council had \u201cannoyed\u201d other Bay of Plenty<\/a> councils over the years, and recent calls for amalgamation discussions<\/a> made this worse.<\/p>\n Drysdale gave a five to the council\u2019s impact on infrastructure to support housing, but said it should get a nine for trying.<\/p>\n The council wanted to deliver on this but it took time, so this was something it could improve, he said.<\/p>\n Most gave a six or seven, and the lowest was a five.<\/p>\n Marten Rozeboom was the only councillor not to respond to the survey.<\/p>\n Local Democracy Reporting asked the New Zealand Taxpayers\u2019 Union to comment on the ratings.<\/p>\n Head of communications Tory Relf said it was \u201creassuring\u201d that Drysdale\u2019s rating of himself was not too dissimilar to his colleagues\u2019 views of him.<\/p>\n Leadership and teamwork had improved after the \u201cissues\u201d Tauranga faced, she said.<\/p>\n In her view, the more concerning figures were for fiscal management and rates affordability. <\/p>\n Given Tauranga\u2019s fast-rising rates, \u201ca six or seven out of 10 doesn\u2019t inspire much confidence\u201d.<\/p>\n For the whole-of-council ratings, she said \u201cmid-range scores on housing, infrastructure and community engagement might sound reasonable\u201d, but she believed a six was not good enough for \u201cratepayers footing ever-rising bills\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTauranga needs to show real progress on keeping rates affordable and cutting waste in order to deliver the infrastructure the city desperately needs.\u201d<\/p>\n Another stand-out was the low score for relationships with other councils, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cCo-operation with neighbouring councils is crucial to keeping costs down and tackling regional challenges like housing and transport, so that number needs to lift.\u201d<\/p>\n The council\u2019s 2025 annual residents\u2019 survey showed overall satisfaction with the council was 44%, up from 34% in 2024.<\/p>\n The council\u2019s scores<\/p>\n Mah\u00e9 Drysdale <\/p>\n Mayoral leadership: 7<\/p>\n Cohesive governance: 9<\/p>\n Fiscal management and rates affordability: 7<\/p>\n Vibrant city: 8 <\/p>\n Community engagement: 8<\/p>\n Inter-council relationships: 7<\/p>\n Infrastructure to support housing: 5<\/p>\n Jen Scoular<\/p>\n Mayoral leadership: 7<\/p>\n Cohesive governance: 7<\/p>\n Fiscal management and rates affordability: 6<\/p>\n Vibrant city: 6<\/p>\n Community engagement: 6<\/p>\n Inter-council relationships: 6<\/p>\n Infrastructure to support housing: 6<\/p>\n Kevin Schuler<\/p>\n Mayoral leadership: 8<\/p>\n Cohesive governance: 8 <\/p>\n Fiscal management and rates affordability: 7 <\/p>\n Vibrant city: 7<\/p>\n Community engagement: 8<\/p>\n Inter-council relationships: 6<\/p>\n Infrastructure to support housing: 7<\/p>\n Hautapu Baker<\/p>\n Mayoral leadership: 8<\/p>\n Cohesive governance: 7 <\/p>\n Fiscal management and rates affordability: 6 <\/p>\n Vibrant city: 7<\/p>\n Community engagement: 6 <\/p>\n Inter-council relationships: 8<\/p>\n Infrastructure to support housing: 7 <\/p>\n Rod Taylor<\/p>\n Mayoral leadership: 8<\/p>\n Cohesive governance: 7<\/p>\n Fiscal management and rates affordability: 7<\/p>\n Vibrant city: 6<\/p>\n Community engagement: 7<\/p>\n Inter-council relationships: 4 <\/p>\n Infrastructure to support housing: 7 <\/p>\n Glen Crowther<\/p>\n Mayoral leadership: 6<\/p>\n Cohesive governance: 8 <\/p>\n Fiscal management and rates affordability: 4<\/p>\n Vibrant city: 6<\/p>\n Community engagement: 5<\/p>\n Inter-council relationships: 4 <\/p>\n Infrastructure to support housing: 7<\/p>\n Rick Curach <\/p>\n Mayoral leadership: 8<\/p>\n Cohesive governance: 7 <\/p>\n Fiscal management and rates affordability: 6<\/p>\n Vibrant city: 7<\/p>\n Community engagement: 8<\/p>\n Inter-council relationships: 6 <\/p>\n Infrastructure to support housing: 7<\/p>\n H\u0113mi Rolleston<\/p>\n Mayoral leadership: 8<\/p>\n Cohesive governance: 8<\/p>\n Fiscal management and rates affordability: 8<\/p>\n Vibrant city: 7<\/p>\n Community engagement: 7<\/p>\n Inter-council relationships: 6<\/p>\n Infrastructure to support housing: 7<\/p>\n Steve Morris<\/p>\n Mayoral leadership: 10<\/p>\n Cohesive governance: 10<\/p>\n Fiscal management and rates affordability: 5<\/p>\n Vibrant city: 6<\/p>\n Community engagement: 5<\/p>\n Inter-council relationships: 7 <\/p>\n Infrastructure to support housing: 5 <\/p>\n \u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drysdale rated himself a seven for leadership, as did his deputy Jen Scoular, but four colleagues gave him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,95,26519,75445,75444,10934,111,43,139,69,6777,19257,1227,165,379],"class_list":{"0":"post-103920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-councillors","11":"tag-drysdale","12":"tag-mah","13":"tag-mayor","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-newzealand","17":"tag-nz","18":"tag-performance","19":"tag-rate","20":"tag-tauranga","21":"tag-their","22":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}An impression of the $306m civic precinct development Te Manawataki o Te Papa, started by the commission, aimed at reviving the city’s heart. Image \/ Tauranga City Council<\/p>\n
\u014ct\u016bmoetai councillor Glen Crowther. Photo \/ David Hall<\/p>\n