by Geoffrey Churchman

For 9 years Kapiti had a hard-working seat-holder on the Greater Wellington Regional Council in Nigel Wilson and the Kapiti district received a proportionately high share of GWRC spending: not just the extension of the commuter trains from Paraparaumu to Waikanae in 2011, but significant flood protection work for houses close to the Waikanae River.

Since 2016 and his unseating, Kapiti has received a proportionately low share of GWRC spending and as people know, the Rates have gone up. Gravel has built up in the Waikanae River and the channel needs deepening to prevent further flood risk.

The incumbent councilor, Penny Gaylor has been more interested in socializing with people she likes (and telling constituents she doesn’t like such as myself and Roger Childs to Stuff off.)

Better public transport for Waikanae and Otaki people is a top priority and he makes that very clear on his website

Regardless of whether or not you subscribe to Climatism (and we don’t), good public transport is crucial for reducing congestion on the roads, reducing parking congestion, and reducing air pollution.

In contrast to the incumbent, he says he is committed to good communications with constituents and bringing GWRC staffers out here. As Regional Councilor, Nigel Wilson regularly attended Community Board meetings; his successor has very rarely attended any or Council meetings either.

Asher wants Greater Wellington to play a strong role coordinating councils across the region, including in regional planning for growth, for transport and for economic development and tourism. “Too often Kāpiti’s voice has been ignored in these conversations, and we need a Councillor who knows how Wellington works and can make a real difference there.”

This includes advocacy for Kāpiti’s needs from WellingtonNZ, for both economic development and tourism — meaning attracting well-paying jobs and more great events to the District. Also important regularly meeting and working closely with Kāpiti Coast District elected members, to ensure we’re representing Kāpiti’s needs in a joined-up way in regional forums and working groups.

Asher has the active support of retiring KCDC Cr Gwynn Compton.

by Geoffrey Churchman

Last night’s meeting in the Utauta Street Community Hall organised by Grey Power had about 150 members turn up to hear the candidates, and must have been the fullest I’ve ever seen the hall. Someone in KCDC had obviously found a picture of Charles from somewhere to replace the one of Elizabeth in their small picture frame on the wall.

Nearly all council candidates (excluding those contesting the other wards) showed up too, which was welcome and showed that nearly all are taking it seriously, rather than just doing it to promote themselves for other reasons, such as their professional services.

The only non-attendees in the district-wide councilor contest were Michael Scott and Liz Koh. We’re told the latter is on an overseas trip that she organised back in March before deciding to run and is back the end of this week. In the Waikanae Councilor contest only Kate Thomson was a no-show; in fact she hasn’t attended any meetings so can’t be considered a serious candidate.

It was fairly apparent which candidates read us and which don’t. That was also apparent with the question askers.

As always, both the mini-addresses — each candidate got three minutes and could spend a minute on questions — were a real mixture of good and bad, as were the questions.

The inevitable groan inducing “what you are going to do about climate change” made its appearance. The correct questions to ask that weren’t going to result in pasty statements would have been:-

• What are you going to do to ensure district readiness for severe weather events?

• What will you do to ensure drains, stream and riverbeds can cope with excess stormwater, including having them cleaned of build-up?

A handful of mask-wearing Jacindanistas were only interested in knowing what candidates had to say in support of the Stuffers’ conspiracy theories, but fortunately they gave up after asking the mayoral and districtwide candidates with the derision from the audience the second time. Mr Mitchell said it was sad questions like that had to be asked and Cr Holborow gave the best answer, “ridiculous” (assuming she meant both the question and the Stuffers.)

But Cr Holborow also made clear she is an unequivocal Guru Gateway supporter, and the only candidate who is. That along with her record of constant support for everything the management proposes, and her bullying those who don’t agree with it, probably mean she’ll need to look for a new job in the Labour Party or Jacinda government service next month.

The candidates that impressed the most were those who had good knowledge and experience of how the system (KCDC and GWRC) actually works, doesn’t work and should work. How active and pro-active they’ll be in office is always a guess with newbies; with incumbents you can go on their track record, including their voting records.

The easiest call is with the GWRC seat — Asher Wilson-Goldman made very clear that if people want anything good to happen, he is the clear choice.

For the Waikanae ward, Nigel Wilson is the standout candidate and Tim Parry is good.

Unlike the other contests the mayoral contest is a tough call as there are 3 good candidates out of the 6 even if they all have weaknesses evident too.

I liked the answers that mayoral candidate Murray Lobb gave on how to deal with rampant council costs escalation — demand that staffers treat all expenditure as if they are spending their own money, stop running off to expensive lawyers and consultants at the drop of a pen and ensure the new CEO does the same. For me, he along with Liz Koh and Michelle Lewis are the three best. But as Murray is contesting the Paraparaumu ward seat rather than district wide, some more pondering is required.

The first of two meetings in the Waikanae Baptist Church hall organised by Grey Power, about 60 members of the public showed up today at 10 a.m. in the sunny early Spring weather to hear 8 of the 14 District-wide council candidates (absent were: Gywnn Compton, who speaks tomorrow, same time, same place as a mayoral candidate, Mike Cardiff, Rosalind Derby, Tim Parry, David Scott and Chris Turver) and two of the three Waikanae Ward councillor candidates, Iride McCloy and Jocelyn Prvanov.  Michael Scott was absent.

Additionally present were our team’s community board candidates, Geoffrey and Margaret, although they were not given speaking time.

Each candidate had three minutes as an opening statement and then members of the audience were invited to ask questions which each candidate answered in turn, and as was to be expected, there was a marked difference between those who had firm ideas and those who waffled (although that depended on the question).

The first question was what can the council do to revitalise the Waikanae Town Centre? Iride pointed out that the closure of the main library has had a big impact, and that although there is a pop-up library now, that was at the expense of the Artel Gallery / Shop, which has gone to Otaki. Nigel Wilson said there should be a bylaw to prevent commercial land banking as a certain woman has now done there for several years. Jocelyn Prvanov said a proposal to allow residential flats to be built on top of the buildings had been considered, although the lack of parking was a problem.

The lack of good communication by elected members, extreme council secrecy, bad council staff turnover, the amount the council spends on consultants and lawyers, the lack of action on the reservoir, the social housing shortage, the amount of council debt and interest payments on it, poor long term planning, the poor value the council gets from contractors, the disfunction between council staff and the elected representatives, and needless to say, the hated water meters, were among the topics that came up.  (The candidates who condemned the water meters were Nigel Wilson, Rob McCann, Murray Forsdyke, Jackie Elliott, Asher Wilson-Goldman, and Iride. Jocelyn Prvanov defended them.)

At the end of the meeting, people were able to sign a newly created petition to the present mayor and councilors to restore the slashed library budget.

by Geoffrey Churchman

This year’s council election was different from previous ones in two important regards:

1. The Jacinda government muscling in with its centralisation plans, taking substantial assets and decision making off councils
2. Ms Boucher’s Stuffers doing hit jobs on libertarian candidates who they thought as well as being opponents of the Jacinda government’s attacks on civil rights, would likely also be opponents of its local government plans.

In 2019 our stance was that nationwide political affiliations were all but irrelevant locally as ideology plays little part when it comes to decisions on big (and smaller) ticket items needed to meet the needs of the people such as parks, reserves, streets, important buildings like halls, recreational facilities, libraries and public landscaping. The necessary attributes of candidates are the right attitudes, astuteness, people skills and genuine interest in what is good for all constituents. That was the approach we took with endorsements this time too, but ideology had to play a part for the reasons mentioned.

Turnout in Kapiti this time was 45%; the highest was in Waikanae at 51%.

The good news

The big win for Kapiti is the success of Nigel Wilson in the Waikanae ward. He is certain to take all the steps he can to eliminate squandering by management including on wasteful wokeism, end the manipulation that was the feature of the Guru+Holborow years to get the things they wanted, end the secrecy, and make abundantly clear to the CEO which staff members/contractors are a liability to the council and should be given their marching orders.

Almost as important are wins by Liz Koh (district-wide councilor) and Glen Cooper (Paraparaumu ward councilor) who wont stand for any nonsense. We don’t know much about what the other newbies — Shelley Warwick, Lawrence Kirby and Rob Kofoed will be like. We like Kathy Spiers (Paraparaumu) on a personal level, but the minus is that she was a supporter of Guru and his Gateway. She replaces Bernie Randall who although he sought reelection, wasn’t keen to be back at the council table given the stress caused by the way Guru, Holborow and Maxwell treated him over the last 3 years

The bad news

This is Janet Holborow’s narrow victory in the mayoral race over Rob McCann. There will be no recount as the gap between 2 candidates needs to be only in single digits for one to be accepted by the District Court which approves one or otherwise.

Why did she win, even if it was only with less than 30% of first preference votes? The endorsement of former mayor Jenny Rowan may have helped (although it equally might have turned potential voters off) as did the assistance given her by the Labour Party machine which among other things, hand-delivered personalised letters over the weekend of 24-25 September. But as usual, the biggest blame must lie with undiscerning casual voters who just read the 150 words in the official booklet and saw the billboard photo, unaware of what has gone on away from the public view.

Not only new electees but media people, including FB admins, are apprehensive about what’s to come given her reputation for being the aggressive ‘Karen’ of Kapiti. Just as important — what payback is the Labour Party going to expect in return for their help — regular media releases and appearances supporting Jacinda government policies?

Another big disappointment is the reelection of Penny Gaylor as the Kapiti seat holder on the GWRC. Opponent Asher Goldman-Wilson had the right policies, was endorsed by rail campaigner Gwynn Compton (and ourselves) and campaigned hard. Her being back again is both disappointing and mysterious. The practical advice we have for readers if they have any matters requiring regional council involvement, is to deal direct with GWRC staffers and ignore Gaylor.

The big campaign issue of the Guru Gateway is a dead duck, in its present form at least. The only supporters it has at the council table now are Holborow, Sophie Handford and Kathy Spiers.

The new Waikanae library will likely now see some action, although whether it is in place by 2025 remains to be seen.