Whanganui District Council to be sworn in, deputy to be revealed

It's been a busy couple of weeks for new Whanganui mayor Andrew Tripe. Photo / Bevan Conley

The new Whanganui District Council is to be sworn in on Wednesday with new mayor Andrew Tripe set to reveal his deputy.

It has been just over two weeks since the election and Tripe said he had been "putting a bit of substance" on his action plan for the first 150 days in office, and held one-on-one meetings with all 12 councillors.

"The main focus of that was around priorities of what they wanted for those first 150 days, and how I can support them," Tripe said. "I wanted to get their views on the deputy mayoralty as well."

That position will be announced on Wednesday.

Tripe said there had been a lot of getting to know each other, and he had attended the Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) mayoral forum in Wellington.

"I think about half of them are new, so there was some real change there and some good energy for how we move forward," he said.

The next step would be potentially reviewing and revising committee structures and spending two days away as a council, he said.

"I know there are some really gnarly and challenging issues ahead of us, like freedom camping areas and how we work with homeless people.

"From central government, we've got a lot of reform coming our way.

"For me right now, like a marathon runner I'm running on the spot but I've got my eye out into the distance as well."

Five new councillors gave freshness and built on the experience of the seven returning councillors, Tripe said.

"It's a 50-50 gender split, which is great," Tripe said.

"As I've said on other occasions, we don't have a diversity outside of that.

"We need to make sure we're listening to the community really well so we're understanding and interpreting their views."

One of the new councillors, Charlotte Melser, said there had been a lot of information to process.

"Another big part of it is building the team and building the team culture," she said.

"That's going well and I think there is a really good mix of people at the table now. We're getting to know each other so we can have really constructive, healthy debate."

Charlotte Melser says there have been a lot of information dumps so far. Photo / Supplied

It was exciting and progressive to have an even gender split at the table, Melser said.

Tripe said there were still some things to learn when it came to the nuances of hosting council meetings.

"For the first one, I'm expecting to be a bit rusty. The key thing is facing both the issues and the opportunities for Whanganui going forward.

"I want my mayoralty to be about getting stuff done and being compassionate and empathetic to the people as well. It's got to be both.

"People often focus on the things that need to be fixed, not necessarily the opportunities, but there will definitely be a bit of getting back to basics and doing them well. That's council's core business.

"I would like to think we can achieve more than just potholes though."

In "these early days", unity and compassion, as opposed to division and hate, were important, Tripe said.

"We're all going to have different views about lots of different things and that's great.

"We need a diversity of views and depth of conversation but not at the cost of people feeling unsafe to speak up."

New councillor Ross Fallon secured the 12th council seat by 66 votes over James Barron.

"I say to my family and friends that I just scraped in as the 12th man but other people say 'All that matters is the vote, not the numbers'," Fallon said.

He said the induction sessions had been informative, enlightening and absolutely necessary.

"The seven returning councillors are also there, they've been there done that, and they've been very supportive. I think we are off to a very positive start under the new mayor."

The first meeting for the new Whanganui District Council will be at Pūtiki Wharanui a Tamatea Pōkai Whenua Marae on Wednesday, from 5.15pm.

Chief executive David Langford will swear in Andrew Tripe as mayor and witness his signing of a written declaration.

Tripe will then do the same for the elected members of the council.