Rotorua Museum is a key project for Tania Tapsell if re-elected as mayor next month. Photo / Laura Smith
Local body elections are under way and five hopefuls are vying for Rotorua’s top job. Local Democracy Reporting quizzed the mayoral candidates about key issues before the October 11 election. We will publish those stories over the coming days.
For incumbent Rotorua mayor Tania Tapsell, the motivation to run for re-election comes from a sense of unfinished business.
Tapsell has earmarked the museum, inner-city development and safety, affordable rates, internal savings and focusing on core infrastructure as major issues after three years of getting the city “back on its feet”.
Recently in the news for the abuse she has received during her time in office, Tapsell might have been forgiven for deciding to move on.
However, despite the pitfalls, Tapsell said she had “really enjoyed” her first term as mayor.
“I knew coming into the last term it was going to be extraordinarily difficult because of the challenges that we were facing,” Tapsell told Local Democracy Reporting.
Rotorua suffered a significant post-Covid dip, with tourism down, emergency housing motel concerns and crime worries on the up.
Tapsell said she was confident she had delivered “lasting solutions” to many of those issues - with domestic tourism rising and emergency housing motels reducing to just two providers by the end of the year, “for those who genuinely need it.”
“It was doom and gloom only a couple of years ago and we’ve been really smart and strategic in how we’ve restored the reputation of Rotorua,” she said.
She highlighted “increasing the confidence” of Rotorua’s residents and visitors as the biggest achievement of her term.
“What I’m really excited about over the next three years is we’ve managed to fix those [issues] and now we can actually focus on how we continue to grow and build our little city that we love.”
A key project top of Tapsell’s pile if re-elected is Rotorua Museum.
Closed in 2016 due to structural issues, the construction cost for its reopening has been secured but a roughly $8 million shortfall remains for its exhibition space.
Tapsell aimed to meet a goal of reopening the museum to the community in 2027 – but said it would take a considerable amount of work to deliver.
“To me, that’s the most important community asset right now,” she said.
“It’s going to take quite a lot of work, and our community is going to need a mayor and council that will advocate strongly and attract external funding.”
The museum is considered a core service under an incoming mandate from central government removing the wellbeing provisions from local council remits.
Tapsell agreed with this designation and said core services would remain her number one priority.
She said the council would look “very closely” at money spent in the community to ensure they deliver “better outcomes”, with rising rates a key voter concern.
Tapsell believed the community was happy to pay reasonable rates if they “see value” in what was provided.
“As well as focusing on core services, we can continue to keep rates affordable while investing and putting our money where it needs to go by looking at what are the non-essential projects we could either pause or remove.”
As for the nice-to-haves seemingly outside that remit, Tapsell highlighted the potential for “increasing public-private partnerships” to fund projects such as the abandoned hydroslide, an aspirational item on Tapsell’s wish-list.
Tapsell, also earmarked the improvement of pensioner housing, reinvigorating hospitality and continuing a tourism bounce-back as key policies for the next three years.
Tapsell said she had developed a strong rapport with deputy mayor, Sandra Kai Fong, and admitted “nervousness” at the potential council membership change.
However, she said there are “strong candidates” and she was “genuinely excited” to “finish off” what she has started if re-elected next month.
“That’s what I’m really looking forward to, being able to continue delivering for Rotorua and doing that alongside a great team.”
Voting in Rotorua’s local body elections remains open until October 11.
Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.
- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.