Lawrence Yule is stepping down as mayor after 15 years to concentrate on his bid for the Tukituki seat. Photo file
Lawrence Yule stepped down as Hastings mayor last week after 15 and a half years, a lengthy tenure but not uncommon for the Hastings district.
In 2001, Mr Yule succeeded Jeremy Dwyer, who had been in office for 15 years, Jim O'Connor had been mayor for 12 years prior to that, and was preceded by Ron Giorgi who also served 15 years.
Mr Yule first stepped into local politics in 1995 when he was elected as a councillor for the Kaweka ward.
He was motivated to stand over rural rates, which following the amalgamation of the Hastings City Council, Havelock North Borough Council and Hawke's Bay County Council in 1989 had resulted in rural ratepayers ($2.5 million debt) being asked to pay the debt servicing costs for urban Hastings' $38m debt.
"We started the rural revolt and said we would not pay rates for six months. After that a rural community board was formed and the debt was ring-fenced back to the city."
These actions caught people's attention and, aged in his mid-30s, he said he was asked to stand for council.
In the early days big issues were dealing with infrastructure backlog, precipitating rate increases of 6.5 per cent each year for three years, mainly to deal with widespread problems with leaking water pipes, which despite recent issues with chlorine, had maintained their integrity, he said.
Early on, he set himself a goal to complete a major project every term, and under his watch several Hawke's Bay landmarks came into being, not without some controversy along the way.
His first foray into a large construction project was Pettigrew Green Arena, but his first major political test was in the early 2000s over the sale of Nelson Park, now the site of the big box commercial retail development on Karamu Rd.
Plans to sell the park met with fierce opposition - 12,000 people signed a petition protesting the sale, and people marched carrying coffins down the main street.
Although he knew it would be challenging for the CBD, the alternative at the time was a proposal to build a megacentre on the expressway between Hastings and Napier, which would have gutted retail in Hastings and Napier.
"In the end it was a tied vote on what to do with it - I said let's have a cup of tea and come back. We couldn't make a decision this significant on a tied vote so I called for a binding referendum."
Sixty-two per cent of respondents supported the sale, and with the market at its peak at the time, it netted the council $18.6m, which facilitated the Hawke's Bay Regional Sports Park investment.
This was another challenging project to get off the ground, with the council taken to the Environment Court, but was now another facility he was proud of, he said.
Fantasyland became Splash Planet under his watch, and work continues on preserving and developing the Hawke's Bay Opera House.
Although such big-ticket initiatives were satisfying, more rewarding was the smaller, community projects such as building playgrounds like the Havelock North Village Green, he said.
Such developments were a sign of how people's expectations of councils had changed over the years.
"When I started people were concerned about potholes, roads and rubbish. Now people just expect that basic infrastructure to be right, and are concerned about the community stuff - the playgrounds, art galleries, job initiatives."
There were times he got it wrong, including his push for housing development at Ocean Beach in 2005/06 as a trade-off to locking off the whole coastline with a heritage strategy.
"I thought that would be a good, pragmatic compromise to protect the coast but the community did not want any development at all - my pragmatism was not in tune with the heart and soul with the community in that case."
Similarly his push for amalgamation of the province's five councils was also out of step with the community's thinking.
"I would do it again but be more realistic about my chances of winning. I thought we could put up a case that people would see the merits of but misunderstood people's concerns about democracy."
This debate tested relationships with the mayors of the other councils in the region, he said, where there were four against one.
"Since then it's got a lot better - we still have our disagreements on some things but it's pretty respectful and has vastly improved from amalgamation times."
Most recently he has faced what could arguably be considered his most challenging event as mayor - the Havelock North water contamination, which he said was personally disappointing.
"While it's easy to say no failings on our part caused this, for too long we have accepted aquifer water is completely safe - how we manage that has to be different - we know how to manage a burst pipe but we have taken the aquifer for granted.
"This was a profound learning for me and the community."
Looking to the future, he said the prospect of treating all water with UV was probably unavoidable, and he could not see that drilling deeper for water made it any safer.
Along with his mayoral duties, Mr Yule has been president of Local Government New Zealand since 2008 and he said this role had been valuable in giving him access to central government to progress some of his ambitions for Hastings, albeit calling him away from the district.
Even when away though, he said he had maintained an open-door policy for people to talk to him, adding up to long hours on the job.
"Some might say I'm a workaholic. There was a price to pay, the break-up of my marriage, but I think it's important to be available."
He'd only ever had two mildly abusive phone calls - one complaining about the noise of the Splash Planet rollercoaster, and another caller who couldn't sleep because of a party next door.
His departure from council, and the role he said had been a privilege to serve, means he can now focus on his bid to become National MP for Tukituki, a move some saw as deserting the district to pursue his political ambitions.
"I understand that people are upset that I didn't see out the whole term, but in this role I would be able to influence national policies.
"I want to be an MP that's hopefully different to what we've had before, and to have a stronger relationship with the council than has been the case. If I think I can make a difference in Wellington I have a once a in a lifetime opportunity."