While voters in Oamaru are spoiled for choice yet again, the Waitaki district’s Ahuriri ward and Corriedale ward will not require elections to determine which councillors will take a seat at the council table for the next term.
In the Ahuriri ward Craig Dawson will be declared elected unopposed late next week, as will incumbent councillors Bill Kingan and Guy Percival in the Corriedale ward.
However, in the perennially hotly contested Oamaru ward, 12 candidates have been nominated for the six council seats — and the next crop of local government politicians in the town could have a youthful look to it.
Skate shop owner and surf instructor Jeremy Holding has been nominated, as have Waitaki Community Gardens co-ordinator and recently retired New Zealand ice hockey player Sophia Leon De La Barra, Oamaru Farmers’ Market general manager Lucianne White and incumbent councillor Melanie Tavendale, who at 35 years old was last term’s lone youthful voice.
Aside from the four candidates under 40, the ward will see incumbents Peter Garvan, Hugh Perkins, Colin Wollstein and Jim Hopkins try to hold off Jock Howie, Glen Perham, Richard Vinbrux and Barry Monks.
The Waihemo ward will see potential new councillors Paul Mutch, Stephen Wesselingh, and Jan Wheeler vying for the lone seat.
Incumbent mayor Gary Kircher will face Mr Wesselingh as the lone challenger for the Waitaki mayoralty.
The Waimate district’s incumbent mayor, Craig Rowley, will face a challenger in Stuart Thomson, and council seats will be contested in the Pareora-Otaio-Makikihi ward as well as the Waimate ward, but the Lower Waihao ward’s Sheila Paul and the Hakataramea-Waihaorunga ward’s Jakki Guilford will both be declared elected unopposed next week.
The MacKenzie mayoralty will be contested by James Leslie and Graham Smith.
