Outgoing councillor Mark Vincent, who missed out on a seat by two votes, has been refused a recount. Photo / Susan Botting
Outgoing councillor Mark Vincent, who missed out on a seat by two votes, has been refused a recount. Photo / Susan Botting
Kaipara District Council will next week be one of the last councils to formally inaugurate its newly-elected politicians after an unprecedented number of recount bids.
The council is one of just two in New Zealand where candidates sought local election recounts, which delayed the swearing-in ceremonies for the new councilto officially take the reins.
A District Court judge’s decision is needed for judicial recount applications before a council’s formal swearing-in ceremony could go ahead.
Three candidates for Kaipara District Council (KDC) lodged judicial recount applications – the highest number for a council among 78 nationally.
Such bids are uncommon, with just the Kaipara and Porirua councils seeking recounts during the recent election.
Outgoing councillor Vincent was the final of the trio to hear the outcome of his application yesterday – his application was declined by Judge Kevin Kelly.
Kelly declined Vincent’s application, saying he was not satisfied there were reasonable grounds to believe the election result declaration was incorrect.
Just two votes from Vincent’s Otamatea general ward’s 4018 votes separated him from retaining a KDC seat for a third term – the smallest margin of New Zealand’s four candidate judicial recount applications.
Vincent said he was disappointed with the outcome.
However, he said he was looking to the future and would support the two elected Otamatea candidates, Mike Schimanski and Denise Rogers.
The T-shirt expressed his concerns over money from the sale of Ruawai’s historic Raupo Drainage Board building going into the council’s general coffers for rates reduction, rather than back to the drainage area for improvement of its infrastructure.
He said he looked forward to seeing how the council fared in the next three years.
Progressive election results showed the vote change between Rogers and Vincent.
On October 11, the election progress results had Vincent 52 votes ahead of Rogers, but the next day’s preliminary results had him 10 votes ahead of her.
However, by October 17, final results showed he was two votes behind Rogers.
Vincent said Otamatea’s results showed the importance of every vote.
He would not be drawn on whether he would seek a seat on the council again in the 2028 local elections, other than to say he was considering his options for the future.
He looked forward to Wednesday afternoon’s formal swearing-in ceremony and first council meeting at Matakohe War Memorial Hall.
Once sworn in, the newly-elected council will be able to take over the council helm.
“The people of Kaipara have elected a talented team of councillors who are all committed to working for the benefit of the district and I look forward to working with all of them,” Larsen said.
KDC’s nine-person governance table will be Mayor Larsen, Deputy Mayor Lambeth and councillors former mayor Craig Jepson, Luke Canton, Nathan, Denise Rogers, Mike Schimanski, Tane and Rachael Williams.
KDC cut its top-table numbers from 10 to nine for the current term, after canning its Te Moananui o Kaipara Māori ward.
It now has three general council wards instead of four, including the Māori ward.
With the mayor, there are three council seats representing the Wairoa general ward, two for the Otamatea general ward and three in the Kaiwaka-Mangawhai general ward.
Mayoral hopeful Snow Tane was the first KDC candidate to seek a judicial vote recount.
His recount bid failed on October 24, after he came in just 21 votes behind Mayor-elect Jonathan Larsen.
However, he is now newly elected to the council after also standing as a Wairoa general ward councillor and achieving a landslide win there.
Dargaville’s Ash Nayyar was the third to fail in his recount bid for a councillor position. He was sixth-ranked in Wairoa general ward for the ward’s three seats – 187 votes behind the lowest-scoring of the three incumbents, now Deputy Mayor-elect Gordon Lambeth.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
