Voting papers are in the mail for this year’s local body elections, and Mayor Kerry Prendergast is hoping Wellingtonians will vote her in for a fourth term. When we asked the mayor what she could offer voters this time around, she talked about her proven leadership skills, and told us: “There aren’t any major issues”.
This is the first Wellington election billboard that I’ve seen since nominations closed. It’s above the empty space at the back of Reading Cinemas, facing five lanes of northbound traffic on Wakefield Street.
The Johnsonville Progressive Association has today been describing a basic fear of property owners whose savings are in their houses. The association says that Johnsonville residents are upset by the Wellington City Council’s District Plan Change 72, which councilors will be voting on tomorrow. It fears that the changes will push their suburb down the socio-economic ladder. And if Johnsonville goes down, down with it will go the value of the houses.
Now that the nominations for the October elections have been received, it’s time to consider the issues, and whether candidates are identifying themselves with any of the topics which are concerning the voters.
The Wellington election campaign just got a lot more interesting, with a report of a business leader shouting at the mayor during a press conference called to announce that Vibrant Wellington would not be nominating any candidates.
It’s a complicated story.
If the first preferences of voters in the 2007 Wellington mayoral election could be illustrated, the photo would be a stampede away from Mayor Prendergast – 65 per cent for all other candidates to 35 per cent for the mayor. The numbers: 33,418 for the others, 17,910 for the mayor. The see-saw was firmly tilted away from her.
Wellington is at a crossroads, with important decisions looming about the future of the city, says Wellington city councillor and mayoral candidate Bryan Pepperell.
He lists Wellington’s pressing problems as council debt, energy and transport provision, and protecting the city’s natural and built heritage.
We visited Councillor Pepperell at his home and asked him about his policies, his aspirations and his opinion of his fellow mayoral candidates.
Meeting places speak volumes. A fair trade clothing sale at Zeal is where mayoral candidate Celia Wade-Brown is scheduled to be on a Monday afternoon, and so that is where we meet her, to hear her plans for a greener and more sustainable Wellington.
Councillor Andy Foster has all but ruled out running for mayor in the upcoming local body elections.
But as a long-term Wellington city councillor, he said he would consider running for mayor in the future and it was a job he could do well.
And he did have a clear opinion on how this year’s candidates were shaping up: “I think it’s going to be a race between Kerry and Celia and we’ll see how it goes.
Although well acquainted with the business world, Jack Yan is a new face in Wellington politics.
At 37, Mr Yan is the youngest mayoral candidate this year. He was born in Hong Kong before moving to Newtown at the age of 3, speaks four languages and has traveled widely.
With a background in the fashion and environmental industries, he definitely intends to shake things up if elected after his first mayoral campaign.
Do mayors have an advantage over other mayoral candidates? With local body elections not much more than four months away, voters will be considering how much they know about the people who want their votes. We probably know more about the mayors than about the people who are standing against them.
This is Wellington City Council election year and it will not be long before our urban landscape is littered with hoardings with extravagant smiles backed by even more extravagant promises.
Reporting that Kerry Prendergast has decided to stand again for the mayoralty in the October elections, the DomPost today decided to poll its online readers about her popularity.
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