The preliminary result shown above without figures gives the 7 successful candidates which don’t include defeated Kapiti mayor Church.  Maybe his reputation had something to do with that?  He can go back to a useful job of restoring classic cars full time.

Guy Burns, unsuccessful Raumati/Paekakariki Ward candidate, thanks all those who supported him in the 2016 Kapiti Coast District Council elections.

“I missed out on the ward seat and wish re-elected Councillor Janet Holborow well. I urge her to tread carefully regarding all future Council spending and decision making.

“Council hands are tied with massive debt of $160 million expected to rise rapidly to $200 million. It will take brave and careful planning and decision-making to get our rates rises down to an acceptable amount; around current inflation levels.

“I also give my support to the new Mayor, K. Gurunathan, and will be watching closely to see that he quickly turns the Council around regarding leaderships, openness,  transparency and accountability.

“I urge the Mayor to immediately reinstate public speaking time to the beginning of Council meetings and to release all Council documents–bar employment and business contracts–to the Kapiti Coast District Council website for public scrutiny.”

Guy Burns

89 Leinster Avenue

Raumati South 5032

021 2624645

04 9040789

Although Guy Burns missed out on the council seat, a consolation was getting onto the Paraparaumu-Raumati Community Board. [-Eds]

The song Ohne Dich (without you) by the German group Rammstein, although prima facie about a person, could apply to fauna killed by poison; the visuals strongly suggest that.

Translated lyrics:

I’m going to go into the fir trees
There where I last saw her
But the evening is throwing a cloth upon the land
and upon the ways behind the edge of the forest
And the forest it is so black and empty
Woe is me, oh woe
And the birds sing no more

Without you I cannot be
Without you
With you I am alone too
Without you
Without you I count the hours without you
With you the seconds stand still
They aren’t worth it

On the branches in the ditches
it’s now silent and without life
And breathing becomes oh so hard for me
Woe is me, oh woe
And the birds sing no more

According to the iteration report:-

James Westbury   968

Tonchi Begovich   666

Jocelyn Prvanov   647

Eric Gregory   541

Jeremy Seamark   502

Jill Lloyd   473

Louise Aitken   444

David Roil   256

Margaret Stevenson-Wright   201

This is a multi-member constituency with 4 seats. Jeremy Seamark overtook Eric Gregory on 2nd (or subsequent) preferences.  The mechanism of the STV system (too complex to explain here!) meant that all the candidates’ final counts were higher than these.

A Gavin Klee photo on the Kapiti Coast Facebook page.  A Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis) on a stem with new shoots and lots of rain.

First preference votes were:

GAYLOR, Penny   6,728
WILSON, Nigel   6,701
BOLLMANN, Peter   3,013

After distribution of second preferences from Bollmann’s voters:

GAYLOR, Penny    7,738
WILSON, Nigel    7,388

To see Penny Gaylor’s stances on issues, see her answers to our questionnaire (earlier post), and to that on the Politics in the Paekakariki-Raumati Ward Facebook page

According to the iteration report on the KCDC website, these were:

Iride McCloy : 1431   (27.5%)

Michael Scott : 1416   (27.2%)

Geoffrey Churchman : 1362  (26.2%)

Tim Parry : 991  (19.1%)

Total: 5200

We thought there wouldn’t be much in it between the first three, and we were right.

Obviously, Michael Scott got more second preference votes than Iride MCloy.

It’s worth noting that Iride’s main policy stance was disestablishing the water meters, while Tim Parry’s was starting the reservoir dam; both of which we agreed with and which by implication a majority of Waikanae people support — will Michael Scott take heed of that?  Well, if he doesn’t, next time he shouldn’t expect re-election.

During the election campaign Council and Mayoral candidates were sent several surveys by different groups seeking their views.

The easiest to answer was that of Grey Power whose concern about ever-increasing council Rates and water charges to pay ever-bigger salaries to KCDC Boss Dougherty’s growing entourage of desk-bureaucrats matched ours.

The hardest to answer was that from the Kapiti Chamber of Commerce whose homage to the great god of economic growth – pdf here – was described by one of our supporters as ‘hawkish’.

Three big obstacles to business in the Kapiti Coast are:

1. The ever-increasing Rates and charges to fund the Council bureaucracy;
2. KCDC Boss Dougherty who in several instances hasn’t allowed local businesses to tender for council contracts;
3. The sham of ‘consultation’ when decisions have already been made behind closed doors by Dougherty and his bureaucrats which then get promoted by his spin doctors in booklets full of fancy graphics with little substance.

Can the new council put right the above problems? We’ll see.

Our response to the survey, in part, was that business growth in Waikanae is only wanted in the existing town centre to maintain a status quo of activity — and not between the Expressway and the beach, which is where all the developer interest is.

Eco-tourism provides opportunities for not just Waikanae, but other parts of the district: keeping the environment pristine, diverse and natural; and improvements to facilities and amenities for visitors should produce more visitors.

But NZ’s main cities already have megamalls and another in the Paraparaumu town centre (with or without an artificial sand-dune!) won’t do anything. The council should stop wasting time and money on that.

Geoffrey’s vote has more than doubled from last year’s by-election. 🙂  But it wasn’t enough to win. Until we see the iteration report we won’t know how close the first preference votes were, but there can’t have been much in it between the the top three.

We knew that the size of Michael Scott’s network in the town would make him hard to unseat, and our campaign was very low key with no hoardings and no advertising. Having a lower leg in a cast ruled out any hustings activity like door knocking for Geoffrey.

Only one of our recommendations for the Community Board — Jeremy Seamark — was successful. 🙁

The excellent news, though, is that Ross Church has been deposed as mayor!  We expected Guru to win and he has handsomely!  Gavin Welsh has also gone, no loss.  Angela Buswell we liked and she has topped the District-wide poll.  With her, plus David Scott and Jackie Elliott back again, the council looks better than it was before.

This year’s brochure is now available at the libraries or is downloadable as a pdf on the KCDC website.  Here are the pages relating to what’s to visit in Waikanae.