George St shop owner Brent Weatherall is among the candidates for the Dunedin City Council on the Team Dunedin ticket led by mayoralty candidate Jules Radich.
Mr Weatherall is a critic of the council’s decision to change George St to a one-way street and he highlighted this stance last year with a sign outside his shop targeting Dunedin Mayor Aaron Hawkins.
The jeweller’s sign featured a photo of the mayor with the word "banned" and Mr Weatherall described it yesterday as tongue-in-cheek.
Mr Hawkins sent him a Christmas card in appreciation of the photo selected, while also noting what the mayor suggested was a Nimby (not-in-my-backyard) mentality to the George St redevelopment, Mr Weatherall said.
"It’s all pretty light-hearted," Mr Weatherall said.
Mr Hawkins is seeking re-election and Mr Weatherall said — if it turned out voters put them both at the council table — he could "work with and be heard by" Mr Hawkins.
Mr Weatherall, who organised a petition about George St, felt he had not been listened to as a retailer.
He described himself as a team player and said he was "not a Right-wing nutter".
His concerns included the likely loss of the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame from Dunedin, the council’s Smooth Hill landfill application and levels of council spending.
Cr Radich has described Team Dunedin as centrist, being both business-friendly and having some Left-leaning concepts in the mix.
"I hope to lead a council that is much more engaged with the community," he said yesterday.
Three-term councillor Andrew Whiley is on the ticket and he is Volunteer South and Community House chairman.
Act Party Dunedin 2020 candidate and political science graduate Callum Steele-MacIntosh was included and his involvement with the Brain Injury Association was highlighted in the Team Dunedin media release.
Former city council assistant treasurer Lynnette Scott has an honours degree in economics, and rounding out the team is Gilbert’s Fine Food proprietor Kevin Gilbert.
"He believes we can lead the world in sustainability goals," it was stated in the media release.
Cr Radich has a science degree and he started Uptown Motorcycles in 1984, selling it 20 years later.
He is a Golden Centre director and has been a business coach for 14 years.
Cr Radich said the council had sometimes worked against what most people wanted.
He appreciated "the value of having everyone working to an overall plan but able to express their individual talents".
"Team Dunedin contains an exceptional range of fresh talent and is not aligned to any political party," Cr Radich said.
"It exists for the good of Dunedin."
Cr Carmen Houlahan withdrew from the ticket to stand for the mayoralty as an independent candidate.
Mr Hawkins said he had no specific comment about candidates for the council, but it was good for voters to have choice.
"We would expect to see candidates who support the positive direction the city has been heading in, and others who are looking to stop that," Mr Hawkins said.
"I don’t think it will be too difficult for the community to tell which candidates fall into which category."
