Slip of the tongue leaves David Stewart red faced

A slip of the tongue saw Tauranga's deputy mayor David Stewart describe Creative Tauranga's SmartArts strategy as a "smart arse" strategy.

The gaff during a council meeting yesterday unleashed hoots of laughter and a flurry of quick-fire comments including that it was a freudian slip.

The usually imperturbable councillor was left so flustered he floundered trying to remember the question he was asking Creative Tauranga's chief executive Tracey Rudduck-Gudsell.

To make matters worse, Cr Stewart was chairing the meeting of the strategy and policy committee.

Once the mirth had died down, the debate carried on to its conclusion in which the council called for a comprehensive update of the Western Bay of Plenty's arts and culture strategy. The council gave Creative Tauranga a year to complete the work.

Earlier in the debate, Cr Stewart said there seemed to be a lot in the original strategy developed in 2006 that had not happened.

He was told that things kept changing and it had been a different environment back when the plan was developed. Since then, some big infrastructure projects had been taken out of the council's 10-year plan. Cr Murray Guy said the sector was still fairly fragmented and disjointed. He successfully called for the city's heritage organisations to be added to the review of the strategy.

Cr Wayne Moultrie found the report "totally depressing" because so few of the actions in the strategy had been achieved.

Cr Terry Molloy defended Creative Tauranga, saying the landscape had changed quite considerably. There was a little bit of uncertainty in the arts community and it needed a united front.

Mayor Stuart Crosby said the criticism was unfair because Creative Tauranga was not the sole deliverer of the strategy. There were large numbers of stakeholders and it was a sector that was challenging because it was not about being bureaucratic.

Cr Larry Baldock wondered where the museum was heading over the location issue. He looked forward to the downtown having a vibrant and exciting cultural centre but it needed everyone to work together and drop some of their personal issues.

"Who knows what we could have in five years."

Cr Stewart said the more involved in the review the better. There was a degree of preciousness between the groups and if they could come together, it would be better.

Something "unique and different" could be created for Tauranga, he said.