Mandy Kimber » Council Events

amalgamation

Mandy — Wed, 11 May 2011 07:57:17 +0000

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 approach developments and changes in the region as one and not separating them into “them and us” It never ceases to amaze me the attitude of Napier people who won’t travel to Hastings for an event, as it is “too far”! I drive to Napier from Havelock North every day to work!

Replying to newspaper letters

Mandy — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 06:06:49 +0000

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 was a councillor to get feedback on issues affecting Havelock North. I wrote letters to a variety of people and I attended meetings. I set up a website to “spread the news”, I used facebook and I twittered!. Over the election period, in the Hastings District, only two “meet-the-candidates” meetings were held and attended by only a few.
Recently there has been a determined effort for council meetings to be held later in the day, so the public can attend and watch councillors in action for themselves. I guess in the end it is up the members of the public to make an effort to research the candidates for themselves and make an informed choice they are happy to live with for the next three years.”

life after an election loss…………

Mandy — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 07:43:48 +0000

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 stomach. In the end, after meeting family members for morning coffee in the village, the engineer and I drove to Napier for coffee and a walk round Ahuriri. It was while I was walking, dodging showers, that Vicki called me from HDC to give me the bad news. Her conversation started with…”It’s bad news I’m afraid!” Bugger was my reaction, but being 300 votes behind there wasn’t much chance of a change in the result. So we drove home and I fielded a few phone calls from fellow councillors, the Mayor and Ross, HDC’s CEO. Everyone is kind with their commiserations, but it seriously doesn’t help much! The feeling is crap and takes a while to go away! I was joined in my loss by Anne, an excellent councillor who worked SO hard for Hastings, always coming to meetings well prepared and researched. Anne door knocked during the election campaign, she acted on concerns residents brought to her notice and yet she was voted out of office. Sadly the only conclusion I can make from this unfortunate result is the more billboards a candidate can afford, the more likely they are to win! It is a sad state of affairs when wealthy candidates get elected and not the ones, like Anne, that have done a brilliant job. Anyway, I have a brilliant Principal at Colenso, who had a long chat with today. I need to increase the hours I teach next year to cover my mortgage costs. Daniel ended our conversation with “their loss is our gain” it made my day!

waiting for election results………….

Mandy — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 03:10:06 +0000

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 walked the length of the Ohope beach to get coffee, a total of 15 km, taking us 3 hours! Talk about feeding an addiction! This morning was the final council meeting for the current term and the Mayor said his farewells to retiring councillors (four of them) and wished the rest of us luck on Saturday. Only two sleeps to go, as my grandson Kalani would say. Tomorrow you may see the engineer out and about taking my signs down, as this is a requirement before the election date. Give him a toot, as he needs all the encouragement he can! My son Staf, is home briefly from Melbourne, so he may be helping too.

Whale Island from the caravanTaking down the little signs!

progress on the election

Mandy — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 07:42:57 +0000

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 to www.electionz.com/elections/lgereturns/returns.htm The engineer represented me at morning tea today at Summerset Village, in Havelock North, as I had 2 classes to teach. he really enjoyed the experience, as the photo shows!

The Engineer campaigning on my behalf