All of the criticism about a new rugby stadium is spot on while the big-spenders' brigade diatribe is simply bleating without merit with someone using the muppets as the fiddle to play the tune.

Tauranga has ASB Baypark Stadium for better or worse with a horrific $30 million debt tag. Just erect low-level wooden stands over the Baypark track, then relocate the non-complying speedway loss-maker to the TECT All Terrain Park.

Worldwide stadiums are huge loss-making money-suckers and we need facilities people use all the time, not rarely if ever.

The Bay of Plenty Rugby Union in is in fact currently spurning Baypark by using the Tauranga Domain - presumably because attendances are so poor - for only two second tier ITM home games catering for a few thousand people.

It is ridiculous pushing for a purpose-built rugby stadium - and if this is how an ungrateful BOPRU uneconomic subsidised outfit behave cut it loose to fend for itself.

It's in the same category as the Bay Oval cricket troughers. Tauranga is never going to be an international rugby venue, nor even get Super 16 games in the foreseeable future.

Frankly, isn't it about time Tauranga ratepayers were kept in the loop by elected members - not fed spin doctoring by the Civic Amenities Group, the Mayor, or council bureaucrats.

It is called transparency, I believe, and TCC citizens need an unequivocal statement from current councillors and prospective candidates that no new rugby stadium will be entertained now or in the future.

R Paterson, Matapihi.