Mercia-Dawn Yates discusses why she decided to run for a second term on council.
Watch the full Local Focus interview for Yates' views on the region's biggest issues, and our less important quickfire questions
Education is the big issue for Mercia-Dawn Yates who is hoping to keep her seat as a Rotorua general ward councillor.
"Education is the foundation," she said.
"If we canget our communities involved and understand more about the importance of going to school - after Covid and two years of truancy – we need to find solutions to get our kids back into school."
When asked about co-governance, Yates said she was a partnership person and preferred it to the term "co-governance".
"We've got enough examples around us to demonstrate what good partnership looks like especially within council," she said.
On Three Waters, Yates was in general agreement – "if our water is healthy, our people are healthy" – but the obligations being "forced onto councils" was not right.
On homelessness and emergency housing, Yates said there was a lot of work still to be done in that space.
