Queenstown Lakes District Council’s new mayor says he has ‘‘very big shoes’’ to fill, but has promised to forge his own path.
Based on preliminary results, one-term councillor Glyn Lewers, infamously elected to council in 2019 after a coin toss with fellow candidate AJ Mason, was elected to the council’s top job on Saturday afternoon.
It was not, however, a comfortable majority - Mr Lewers (44) received 4140 votes, 544 votes ahead of Jon Mitchell (3596).
Olivia Wensley came in third (2415) followed by Al Angus (798), Neeta Shetty (499) and Daniel Shand (195).
The result was based on 100% of the return votes, but excluded votes special votes.
The voter return was just 42.22 %, or 11,860 votes, by yesterday afternoon.
Mr Lewers told the Otago Daily Times on Saturday he had ‘‘a few butterflies in the stomach’’ when he saw council chief executive Mike Theelen’s call coming through.
‘‘I was chuffed but also overwhelmed that the district would actually vote me in. It’s a very humbling experience.’’
He accepted former mayor Jim Boult left ‘‘very big shoes’’ to fill, but said he would forge his own path in the role and looked forward to working with his new councillors - a mix of experienced hands and fresh faces.
‘‘I think we’ve got a little bit of team-building to do and I’m really excited about bringing those new and experienced hands together,’’ Mr Lewers said.
The son of sharemilkers from ‘‘rural Northland’’, the structural engineer studied at the University of Otago before moving to Australia. He relocated to Queenstown 10 years ago after his children, Ryan (13) and Aidan (10), were born.
In the resort he has been a Destination Queenstown board member, a Start Up Queenstown Lakes board member, and was the Frankton Community Association chairman until being elected to council.
He said pressing issues for elected members to deal with included the Government’s proposed Three Waters, Resource Management Act and local government reforms.
‘‘They’ll be quite confronting to local government in the next three years, and we’ve got to be pretty agile to get around them, or see how they fall, depending on what happens next year with the central Government election.’’
He also wanted to get the Queenstown CBD street upgrades ‘‘out of the way’’ to help businesses recover, and intended focusing more on Wanaka and Upper Clutha.
Regarding the controversial billion-dollar Lakeview Taumata development, Mr Lewers assured the community a large part of the decision-making process would be presented in a council committee, while he also intended to forge ahead with a proposed visitor levy for the district.
‘‘It’s a key assumption of our long-term plans ... I’d like to see, once we get it in, if we can broaden that, outside of accommodation to activities and transport and things like that.
‘‘It’s a work in progress, but it is key to actually funding infrastructure that’s needed in Queenstown and Wanaka.’’
Meantime, the Wanaka-Upper Clutha Community Board’s provisional members will be Simon Telfer, Chris Hadfield, John Wellington and Linda Joll.
Final results are expected on Thursday.
