The first meeting of the new Tauranga City Council is on Tuesday, October 26.

The councillors will be sworn in, and a deputy mayor chosen, but Mayor Stuart Crosby doesn't expect any other decisions from the first meeting.

The first decision making session of the new council will be a behind-closed-doors workshop later in the week, where councillors will discuss and decide on the committee structure and make up.

The committee structure governs how the council approaches and sorts out its workload. Along with the committee structure, the councillors will workshop committee membership, the appointment of chairpersons and deputies, and other housekeeping matters including external representatives, the code of conduct and standing orders.

It is a process that has to be completed before the new council can begin business.

Stuart's hoping to amalgamate the council monitoring and projects and services committees.

'The reason is there is a fair amount of duplication,” says Stuart.

The future of the hearings committee will also be discussed. The issue is whether councillors will continue to be involved in chairing resource management issues, whether they are all chaired by independent commissioners – or a mix of the two as at present.

The hearings committee issue sparked several debates last term.

The last council was divided with much of the voting split along factional lines. David Stewart, Bill Faulkner, Wayne Moultrie, Greg Brownless and Mike Baker were more often than not voting against Murray Guy, Rick Curach, Catherine Stewart, Hayden Evans, and Bill Grainger.

Greg decided not to stand again, and Mike and Hayden were not re-elected.

The new councillors are Larry Baldock, Tony Christiansen, and Terry Molloy.