With the aim of bringing "fresh blood" to the council table, an Invercargill mayoral candidate has gathered a group of people to make a collective push at the next election.
Deputy mayor Nobby Clark this week released the names of people taking part in "Let’s Go Invercargill", which he says is a group of like-minded people who want to run in October’s local body election as a voting ticket.
It includes Cr Clark as mayoral hopeful, and current Invercargill city councillor Allan Arnold is standing for re-election.
The group also includes Tom Campbell (the former general manager at Tiwai Point aluminium smelter), Grant Dermody, Andrea Arango-Murrell, Karl Herman, Kevin Brown, Bevan Smith and Kerry Hapuku, all running for council seats.
"Many people didn’t put their names forward because it was hard to raise their profile. So the idea was to have a collective approach to remove those barriers," Cr Clark said.
The idea was to have a group with similar views for the future of the council.
"That doesn’t mean they are all of the same mind, which I can assure you is not the case.
"It is a group of people who have core values and core vision ... Once you get into council, the ticket basically disappears as it is basically a marketing tool."
He had approached about 25 people in the past month and the group represented a good range of experience and came with skills such as management and finance.
The group’s main goals were to ensure a new museum could be built in the next three years, enhance the governance skills on the council and increase the availability of new candidates.
Sponsors of the initiative would be declared at the appropriate time, as all candidates had to do, he said.
Nominations for this year’s local body elections close on August 12.
