Mr Foon is in his fifth term as mayor of Gisborne District. It has a population of 46,000, with about half being Maori. Jobs are mostly in horticulture, agriculture and forestry, and the processing of products such as wood and wine.
Tourism is also big, with 10-12 cruise ships mooring in the harbour every year.
Gisborne was the venue for the first conference held by the MacDiarmid Institute in memory of Wanganui-raised scientist Sir Paul Callaghan. That was called the Transit of Venus Forum and happened in June 2012.
Gisborne is perceived as remote but not by people who live there.
"Once people got here, they felt they had a fantastic time," Mr Foon said.
Holding the forum let "the HQ national people" know Gisborne existed. And members of the institute still return, to work with Tolaga Bay Area School's sustainability programme and help Nga Tamanuhiri with a genealogy project.
Although Gisborne's population was stable, it was conscious of the trend towards rural decline and the threat of becoming a "zombie town", Mr Foon said.
"Our job is to be positive and do something about it. The biggest challenge for us in Tai Rawhiti is how do we sustain ourselves into the future. We seem to do too much of what we can't afford," Mr Foon said. The district needed to maintain what it had before building more.
"I don't want us to go and build stadiums and big conference centres and such."
Gisborne was hoping to attract more tourists by telling the stories of early navigation by Maori and Captain Cook.
"Cook meeting Maori here is the conception of our nation as we know it today. We are celebrating that through story telling and infrastructure."
The district was creating a series of walkways by the river, sea and in town. It's "being itself, but celebrating itself", Mr Foon said.