Tauranga City Council’s Long Term Plan 2018-2028: guide for submission
Visioning Our Future, by Peter McKinlay
The Council’s consultation document is available at here: TCC Long Term Plan 2018-2028
Taonga Tauranga has prepared this brief guide to preparing a submission on the Council’s LTP. The LTP itself contains a multipage submission form. It allows you to make comment on each of the separate proposals it contains. You may want to use that. Alternatively you can put in your own submission form. There is no obligation to use the Council’s form. If you’re making a submission on just one or two items, you might find it much easier not to use the Council form but just to follow the simple guide below. We’ve included comments on each section
It should start with preliminary detail including addressing it to the Council providing the heading and giving your personal details including physical address phone number and email address.
When you’ve done that, start writing the submission. We provide a number of suggestions below on how to do this.
The starting layout
TO:
Mayor and Councillors, Tauranga City Council, Willow Street, TAURANGA
Submission on Long Term Plan 2018-2028
Details of submitter:
First name:
Surname:
Postal address: (this should be your physical address not a PO Box)
Daytime phone number: (you can use either a landline or mobile)
E-mail: (the Council will almost certainly want to contact you by email)
Beginning your submission
Begin your submission by stating “I wish to speak to Council in support of my submission.” if you want to speak to the Council in person, it will give you up to 10 minutes to present your ideas. We recommend you do state you wish to speak to the Council in support of your submission. Councillors will take you more seriously if they have had the chance to listen to you and ask you questions.
If you change your mind later, you can always get back to the Council and say you’ve decided you don’t want to be heard after all. The really important thing is to make sure you keep the option open.
Be clear on what you support and what you oppose
When writing your submission, start by saying what you support and what you oppose. With the museum option you’ve got a whole range of choices from where it should be, to how it should be funded, to thoughts on how the museum should actually operate – for example could it establish outliers in different parts of the city so that you don’t have to come into the Museum itself to take part in what it is doing – modern technology makes this relatively straightforward.
Set out your reasons for opposing or supporting. Councillors will take you more seriously if you explain why you are in support or opposed. Write the submission the way you would write a letter or other personal communication. There is no need to be particularly formal. Do though avoid abusing the Council or anyone else. That’s the quickest way to get Councillors offside.
Joint submissions
You can make a joint submission with other people if you want to. If you do make sure that each person’s details are included. You can also encourage other people to make submissions on their own behalf.
Some people organise standard submissions or postcard submissions. They build the numbers up but they are not as persuasive as individual submissions. Councillors take much more notice when it looks as what though they’re getting is an individual opinion, rather than a cookie-cutter submission.
Get it in on time
Submissions must be received by the Council no later than 4 PM on 16 April. You can email your submission to this address: submissions@tauranga.govt.nz
It’s a good idea to do so no later than a few hours before submissions close and ask for the Council to acknowledge receipt.
Enjoy the process. It’s about as close as we get to democracy in action, and even if you’re not used to speaking in public, it’s actually quite a user friendly process with Councillors normally doing their best to put people at ease.
Written by Peter McKinlay, MDL
Contact: peter[AT]mdl.co.nz
