Central Hawke's Bay farmer Peter Butler returns to serve as the district's mayor for a second term, following preliminary results of the local government elections released today.
Just 310 votes separated Mr Butler from his only mayoral challenger, Trish Giddens. Mr Butler received 2587 votes and Mrs Giddens, 2277.
Mrs Giddens lost
the mayoralty to Mr Butler at the 2010 local government election by just 44 votes.
The results were based on about 98 per cent of the returned voting papers.
In the Central Hawke's Bay District Council's Aramoana-Ruahine Ward, the four vacancies were filled by returning incumbents Sally Butler, Mark Williams, Terry Story and Maitland Manning.
In the Ruataniwha Ward, the four vacancies were filled by incumbents Terry Kingston, Ian Sharp along with new councillors Kelly Annand and Andrew Watts.
The voter return was 53.04 per cent, which was 4949 voting papers, excluding voting papers in transit to the processing centre and special votes.
Results. * denotes incumbent:
Mayoralty Votes Received
*BUTLER, Peter 2,587
GIDDENS, Trish 2,277
INFORMAL 0
BLANK VOTING PAPERS 89
Aramoana-Ruahine Ward (4 vacancies) Votes Received
*BUTLER, Sally 1,705
*WILLIAMS, Mark 1,585
*STORY, Terry 1,564
*MANNING, Maitland 1,520
TENNENT, David N 1,258
INFORMAL 2
BLANK VOTING PAPERS 26
Ruataniwha Ward (4 vacancies) Votes Received
*SHARP, Ian G S 1,622
ANNAND, Kelly 1,484
WATTS, Andrew 1,462
*KINGSTON, Terry 1,455
TURFREY, Bruce 1,139
WATSON, Julia 712
BAIRD, Sharleen 577
INFORMAL 2
BLANK VOTING PAPERS 56
The voter return was 53.04%, being 4,949 voting papers, excluding voting papers in transit to the processing centre and special votes.
