“Extremely surprised” is how new Mayor Richard McGrath described his reaction to coming out on top in the Napier City elections.
McGrath beat incumbent Kirsten Wise and businessman Nigel Simpson by quite a large margin, with 10,185 votes compared to 6,763 and 3,989 respectively.
McGrath said he campaigned about the same amount as he did previously to get elected to council: handing out flyers, knocking on doors and standing outside supermarkets talking to people.
“It feels like I’ve been picked up and dropped on Mars and told to go for it,” he said.
He took his hat off to all the hard work Kirsten Wise had done, and said there was no comparison between the workloads of a councillor and a Mayor. It was a change from the way he was used to working.
With summer fast approaching, McGrath said his agenda for the next couple of months was “blooding a new council”.
“We’ve got a whole lot of people who were quite comfortable under the old system, and right now know we don’t know what the new system is because we’ve had a realignment”.
The new council is made up of Roger Brownlie, Sally Crown and Keith Price from the Ahuriri Ward; Te Kira Lawrence, Greg Mawson and Craig Morley from the Napier Central general ward; Ronda Chrystal, Nigel Simpson and Graeme Taylor from the Taradale ward and Whare Isaac-Sharland and Shyann Raihania from Te Whanga Māori ward.
McGrath said the coming weeks would involve a little bit of induction, building the team up and everyone getting to know each other and seeing who could help who.
“There’s really a lot of that over the next two weeks, and I’m not sure when it’s going to drop into business as usual. I don’t think that will even happen until next year.”
He had completed one on one meetings with all the councillors and said it was “looking really good, actually. We’ve got a good mix, a good council. You need the mix”.
McGrath said the status quo had been flipped in Napier, perhaps exemplified by the most strongly elected councillor in the most contested ward (Ahuriri) being newbie Brownlie, while one-term councillor Juliet Greig was not re-elected. “There have been casualties. The people wanted change,” he said.
The agenda was still pretty much day to day at this stage, as workshops, learning and orientation took precedence over council meetings, but decisions would still need to be made. The council staff were supporting him really well, he said.
He had already asked the councillors individually what they campaigned on and based on that, what they could start working on as a body. “Really loading us up so we can go out and start working on what the community has asked us to do.”
Definitely a strong mandate for change. It’s worth noting Kirsten Wise despite having six years as mayor and six prior years as a councilor had a strong profile and brand, yet 69% of voters wanted a change in direction in Mayor. Also worth noting that other NCC candidates were elected on a platform of getting council back to doing the basics well and ditching vanity projects. Fingers crossed the aquarium which requires $2m PA in ratepayer subsides and tens of millions for a rebuild gets closed down for good as for cab off the rank for fiscal responsibility approach. Ratepayers deserve a return to basics approach to make rates more affordable.
I wish the new council all the best. Richard is a door knocker, like me, I respect that and it sounds as if he will be taking on board the views of the people from that communication, which is true, grassroots democracy. Meanwhile, I and I hope many others, will be keeping a keen eye on the spend. After hearing story after story of hardship and struggle, particularly from our elderly and those wondering whether they will ever be able to retire, I was passionate about supporting the rates cap initiative. The well over inflation level rate increases are unsustainable, you can only squeeze a lemon so far.
Richard having campaigned on a “back to the basics” platform, it would be good to hear from him what if anything he can do about big ticket decisions made by the outgoing Council – the new council buildings and library, the regional combined water organisation and investment company. Have these horses bolted?
Great to have Richard on board and Kirsten out the door. She had lost touch with the majority and votes prove it. A shame so much bad decisions she has pushed through can’t be quashed. Richard, whats your point of view on rural sprayers, drones and rich tourist helicopters/planes flying over Napier residences unnecessarily distrurbing our peace? Sad to hear Sally has been appointed Deputy with her checkered past, please ensure she does not try to sneak through deals like she got caught out on with Parklands. Sally, nows your second chance to prove us wrong and do the right thing by your ratepayers. Transparency always.