Tauranga City Council is the local government authority for Tauranga City in New Zealand. It is a territorial authority elected to represent the 158,000 people of Tauranga. The last Mayor of Tauranga was Tenby Powell, who resigned in November 2020. The council consists of 11 members elected from three wards (2 councillors each) and at-large (4 councillors), and is presided over by the Mayor, who is elected at large. Marty Grenfell is currently the CEO of Tauranga City Council. History The historic predecessor was Tauranga Borough Council, which existed from 1888 to 1963. Tauranga City Council was then formed and existed from 1963 until the 1989 local government reforms. Post-amalgamation with other authorities in 1989 (e.g. Mount Maunganui Borough Council), Tauranga District Council existed until 2003 when it again became Tauranga City Council. On 20 November 2020, Mayor of Tauranga Tenby Powell resigned following infighting between himself and city councillors, eight months after he was unanimously censured by his council for an angry outburst. On 18 December 2020, Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta confirmed that the Government would be appointing commissioners to administrate Tauranga in response to infighting within the City Council. The commissioners' terms began in early 2021 and were scheduled to last until the next local elections scheduled for October 2022. The decision to cancel the election for a new mayor and councillors, and the appointment of a crown commission instead by Nanaia Mahuta was not without controversy. A legal opinion by law firm Russell McVeagh found her decision may have been "unlawful." and Tauranga MP Simon Bridges called the decision "dramatic and draconian" while saying that Powell quitting removed "a significant source of friction" and it was reasonable to assume the council would become more functional with the election of a new Mayor and Councillor. On 12 March 2022, Mahuta announced that the Tauranga City Council would continue to be administered by four commissioners until July 2024, citing the substantial infrastructure challenges in Tauranga and the surrounding Bay of Plenty region. On 22 April 2022, Mahuta confirmed that the commission's chairwoman Anne Tolley and fellow commissioners Bill Wasley, Stephen Selwood, and Shadrach Rolleston had been reappointed as commissioners with elections postponed until July 2024. While Tauranga City Council chief executive Marty Grenfell and Bay of Plenty Regional Council chairman Doug Leeder welcomed the reappointments on the ground that they ensured continuity, Tauranga Ratepayers' Alliance spokesman Michael