With two and a half weeks to go before nominations close, early indications show a trickle rather than a flood of interest for local body seats.

Concerns were expressed in Alexandra on Tuesday (July 26) that very few people had turned up to a council-run information evening for prospective candidates.

These follow ongoing worries that pressure from lobby groups, general “grumpiness” and major changes being required of local government by central government could be off-putting for those looking to stand.

Local body elections are held every three years and cover Central Otago’s four community boards, the mayoralty, council and Central Otago Heath Inc. 

Only two candidates – Sally Feinerman (Roxburgh) and Lynley Claridge (Alexandra) have so far filed their nominations.

Others who have confirmed to the Central App so far that they intend to stand again for the October election include mayor Tim Cadogan, deputy mayor Neil Gillespie, councillors Nigel McKinlay, Dr Roger Browne and community board members Anna Harrison and Bob Scott.

Cr Tracy Paterson, Vincent Community Board (VCB) chair Martin McPherson and Cr Tamah Alley also confirmed they were looking forward to standing again and Cr Ian Cooney was undecided, partly due to health issues.

No response had been received by deadline from VCB members Sharleen Stirling-Lindsay or Anna Robinson. VCB deputy chair Russell Garbutt resigned in June 2022 and no by-election was held to fill his vacant seat. 

The board decided on Tuesday not to elect a new deputy chair due to the impending election.

No response was received by deadline from Cromwell Community Board’s (CCB) Werner Murray, Cheryl Laws or Tony Buchanan. Robin Dicey resigned from the CCB in April 2021 but his seat was filled by Bob Scott.

Councillor and former CCB member Shirley Calvert has announced she will not be standing in the coming election, joining two other very experienced members in leaving local government - Teviot Valley Community Board (TVCB) chair Raymond Gunn and TVCB member and councillor Stephen Jeffery.  

The Central App did not receive a response from current community board members Norman Dalley or Cushla Aitchison from Teviot Valley, or from any current Maniototo Community Board members. It has been indicated that one new candidate may be standing in the Teviot Valley and that four of the five Maniototo members intend to re-stand.

At a meeting this week Cr Roger Browne said low turn-out to this month’s candidates information evening was “very disappointing”.

“So few people turned up. I don’t know if that means that very few people in the community are interested but I was quite amazed at how few people came along and expressed any interest in standing for any of the positions.”

Cr Tracy Paterson told the Central App she felt people were possibly nervous about putting their hand up due to major reforms underway.  

The government has begun the process of legislating new centralised water management that will take that work away from local government and is also proposing significant changes to how local government operates and what its responsibilities are.

“After the coming [general] election we don’t actually know what the face of local government is going to look like and also with Three Waters being taken away, are councils going to look quite different… we don’t know the answer to that. There’s also a lot of things people are quite grumpy about at the moment, around what money is being spent on, like rates.” 

Tracy believed future work should focus on the basics, a view that was shared by mayor Tim Cadogan at a recent Maniototo Community Board meeting.

“When I think about this district going forward,” Tracey said, “it’s about getting our core business, our infrastructure and things like that, getting that right and done correctly and all the nice-to-haves will come afterwards.”

Nominations close at midday Friday August 12 and voting documents are sent out in mid-September. Voting closes at midday, October 8.