Tauranga City's civic heart project and changing the way things are done in the Western Bay of Plenty are the first big gigs for the district's two new mayors.

Greg Brownless was elected Tauranga's new mayor last Saturday after receiving a preliminary 9046 votes, while Garry Webber secured Western BOP's top job with 3592 ticks of endorsement the same afternoon.

Greg says there's two immediate issues he'll look into – the previous council's decision to pull the New Year's Eve celebrations and the civic heart project.

'I would like to find out what's behind it, I would like to find out what the Police position is, see what the appetite amongst the councillors is to see if we can change anything,” says Greg, who has been on Tauranga City Council for most of the last 20 years.

'It's counter intuitive to the whole idea of being originally told we needed to provide family entertainment there and that would help out, and now to find that it's the opposite.

'I probably would like to talk to the other councillors and try and see if there's anything we can do. Unfortunately, it's all so late in the year.”

The civic heart project is another issue he's eager to hear the new council's thoughts on.

'It's a big wish list. I would like to see that refined a bit, pick off something we can actually do, rather than too much dreaming,” says Greg.

'I think we also need to engage the feelings of the local architect and design people.”

In the Western BOP Garry is promising the council is going to change how it does things.

'I don't think there's much wrong with what WBOPDC has been doing, it's more the how rather than the what,” says Garry, who has been a Kaimai ward councillor for the last two terms.

'How we do things, and that's really going to a community-based starting point for a lot of our planning, rather than council comes up with ideas and goes out to the community.”

His example is Katikati library, which has seen cost increase from $3.5m to $4.5m – with an explanation by council staff that building costs increased by 15 per cent during 18 months.

'I think the community requires or wanted a library, it's how we went about it. If we had started with the community engagement a little sooner,” says Garry.

'You know you learn from these things going forward and I think that's one of the lessons we have to learn that we have got to engage with the community earlier in the process, rather than later in the process.”

Garry says WBOPDC still has got some way to go to make sure rates are delivering value for money 'and I think we are pretty close to where we should be going forward”.

And ongoing housing growth shows people want to live in Western BOP. 'They want to come here because of what those communities provide and we need to make sure we don't get carried away providing stuff that is gold plated, but stuff that's fit for purpose and meets the needs of the current community and provides ongoing reasons for people who want to come and live in the district.”

Both councils have seen faces disappear and new people elected on Saturday.

Larry Baldock, Terry Molloy, and Max Mason have been voted onto TCC while Matt Cowley, Bev Edlin and John Robson have gone. Catherine Stewart, Gail McIntosh, Rick Curach, Leanne Brown, Steve Morris, Bill Grainger and Kelvin Clout retain their TCC seats.

At WBOPDC David Marshall, Mark Dean, John Palmer Mike Lally and Grant Dally have been voted onto council, while Mike Williams, Peter Mackay, Don Thwaites, Kevin Marsh, John Scrimgeour and Margaret Murray-Benge retain their chairs from last term.

Gwenda Merriman, Ross Goudie, Karyl Gunn-Thomas and Sue Matthews have gone.