It is great to see the conversation has begun on amalgamating local government in Hawkes Bay. It can only be beneficial for the population of the region, as it would provide a united front to NZ of over 150,000 people. It would be so good for many of the parochial, born and bred HBers to [...]

During the week, a reader wrote into the HB Today complaining it was difficult to do research and get informed before voting for candidates.  This is my reply: “As a recent (and unsuccessful ) candidate in this month’s local body election, it is very difficult to get your message across. I have tried over the three years I [...]

It’s not a great feeling losing an election, especially when you feel you had done a reasonable job and you’d only had one term! Sadly that was the outcome last Saturday. I had a feeling deep down that the result would not go my way. I was very nervous all day, with quite an upset [...]

I’m not a very patient person, so these last few days waiting for the results this Saturday have been very long. To take my mind of coming events, the engineer and I went camping at Ohope. The camping ground is down by the Ohiwa harbour outlet to the sea and a beautiful setting. We even [...]

This year a web site has been developed, by the company that 35 councils to count votes, to track the voting papers as they are returned. When I looked this evening, Havelock North voters numbered 24, which is 0.26% of the possible just over 9000 electors. If you are interested in tracking the votes, go [...]