Steve Morris: Tauranga Councillor addresses ratepayer outrage after council spends $470,000 on coffee costs

Tauranga City Council has copped some backlash after accepting a five-year contract for coffee machines and coffee at a total cost of $470,000.

This comes as the council proposed putting parking fees on boaties - sparking outrage from ratepayers.

Tauranga Councillor Steve Morris understands why people are outraged by this.

"Charity starts at home - and perhaps we could be charging 50 cents or even $1 per coffee from our council organisation to recoup the costs."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Frying the bridge.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Totong A City Council has accepted a five year contract
for coffee machines so staff don't have to waste time
leaving the office for their fix the problem. The contract
is worth half a million dollars and includes five years
worth of coffee. They're less than seventy meters away from
the closest coffee shop, with several more nearby. As you
can imagine, rapeays are up in arms. Totonger City councilor

(00:23):
Steve Morris with me now, Hi, Steve.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Good afternoon, Bryan.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
How are you good? Can you understand the outrage?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Oh? I certainly can. When I first found out about
the sec where I certainly spat out my.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Milo Why half a million dollars?

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah? So I've had a look at it and looked
into the detail. And there are roughly six hundred odd
people in this new council building, and if half of
them have a cup of coffee day over forty eight weeks,
five days a week, it's looking at about fifty five
sixty six cents per coffee. But when you look at

(01:03):
that four hundred and seventy thousand dollars, Sega, I thought
it must have been coming from that su matran civet
that eats coffee beans off the jungle floor and then
partially digests them and then people make a very very
expensive coffee out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
To the just a context of four hundred and seventy
thousand is for the machine, which is like a proper
barista machine, and the coffee beans for five years, but
not the milk right, and the milk correct one. There's
a lot of milk to froth it up, you need
a lot of milk to begin with, and then there's
a lot of waste of milk as well, so we
haven't counted that in the four seventy right.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
No, it's not other than four seventy. I think it's
a conservative assumption that you've only got half the number
of public servants in the building having one coffee per day. True,
So I think I think it's a reason assumption. That
being said, it's a hell of a big number. And
I think in support of the Mears comment around user

(02:04):
pays as a way of selling a rather large budget
hole that we've been left by the commission, charity starts
at home, and perhaps we could be charging fifty cents
or even a dollar a coffee from our council organization
to recap the costs may start making money to be sex.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
These are good to see, these are great ideas. But
people who are ratepayers, who just have been happed with
a twelve and a half percent rate increase, we'll be
listening to the thinking this is ridiculous. What are you
going to have a ten with people putting a dollar
or two dollars in? Why not just scrap the barista
style coffee all together and go with mconna hame.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Oh well, it does. That was a very interesting add
back in the nineties. I would certainly be in favor
of that. However, my understanding is that the tender document
has come back. So it was published on the council
website a month ago. I saw it, and so we've
got to work with what we've been left. And so

(03:05):
my viewers make the best out of a bad situation.
Get people with their swipe cards to login and you
get a dollar taken out of your your pay packet
for the next fortnite and go forward to it's complicated?
Does it?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Does it? Really does?

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Steve?

Speaker 2 (03:25):
I think the simple answer is just throw the machine
out and save yourself the money, Rip the contract up.
Steve Moris, who's they're telling? A counselor.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
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