Council candidate Jodie Curtis wants to make Gisborne a destination city

Gisborne builder Jodie John Curtis is running under the general ward for the local elections. Photo / Zita Campbell

Jodie Curtis wants to swap his builder’s hard hat for a seat at the Gisborne council table to make the region a “destination place”.

A builder for more than 30 years, Curtis has travelled to Antarctica three times for work and believes the skills he learnt there would help him on the council.

When he tells people he is from Gisborne, the response is often, ‘I’ve heard of that place, but I’ve never been there’.

“We want to make it a destination place,” he said.

“Just like how on our phones, we look at places like Venice or Machu Picchu ... it would be nice if people go ‘Woah, let’s go to Gisborne, New Zealand’.”

Curtis is a fourth-generation Gisborne resident – his great-grandfather owned the Curtis pub in Ruatōria.

He is one of 19 candidates vying for eight general ward positions.

Curtis spent two years in Antarctica as a builder for Antarctica NZ during three stints between 2011 and 2015. He spent long stretches of time with a small, diverse group of people.

“You do need different people; if we’re all the same, it doesn’t work,” he said.

The outcome was a collaborative work environment.

Curtis said his campaign is about “hearing the voices of everyone to make positive choices for collective positive solutions”.

To ensure the public felt heard by the council, Curtis wants to create drop-in sessions every three months, allowing the public to speak with councillors.

“Where we all get up and it’s a debate, where people from the public can throw questions at us and we front them. Confrontation is great; we can learn from it,” he said.

He said Gisborne had so much to offer and it needed to be promoted as both a holiday destination and as a place where families come and raise their children.

“Within the heart of Gisborne, make it more dynamic, maybe more offices, because with the internet now, there can be more people that can move [and] work here,” he said.

He said this would have a knock-on effect, bringing more people and movement into the city, which could support more hospitality and smaller shops setting up.

He also said one of his goals was maintenance and safety.

“We’ve got to make sure people feel safe, and when weather hits, our drains are clean and our manholes are sucked up,” he said.

It was during his third stint in Antarctica that Curtis met his now-wife, who is French.

The couple lived in Auckland for three years, raising their 4-year-old daughter, but moved back to Gisborne about two months ago, when his wife landed the role of collection manager at the Tairāwhiti Museum.

He said, now that he was in “daddy day care”, he had more time, and wanted to devote it to the region through his councillor role.

Fifteen years ago, Curtis bought Te Kuri Farm from famous Gisborne cartoonist Murray Ball, creator of the comic strip Footrot Flats.

-LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.