RCB By-election candidates have their say

Just under 30 Raglandic folk turned out on Sunday afternoon (3rd May) to hear the views of candidates in the upcoming Raglan Community Board by-election. Amongst the audience were Ward Council Clint Baddeley and Board Chair Alan Vink. 

The by-election is the result of the resignation of two Raglan Community Board members creating two extraordinary vacancies. The by-election for two members will take place on Friday 5 June 2015. Candidates standing in the Raglan Community Board by-election are:

• ASHBY, Barry 
• CLARKSON, Kelly
• HAWORTH, P J
• STOREY, Peter
• THOMSON, Lisa

The Meet-the Candidates meeting was organised by the Raglan Residents & Ratepayers’ Association. Bob MacLeod, Chairperson of the Ratepayers’ Association chaired the meeting saying each of the five candidates would be allowed to speak in turn in reverse alphabetical order and  he would then open it up for questions from the floor.

Lisa Thomson

Lisa opened speaking in Teo Reo Maori talking about her connection to the area and her iwi. She went on to say that together we are powerful, we need to know where we are going as a community and need to think outside the square. Lisa added that Raglan’s diversity is not currently represented on the Board and her election would address this. If elected she would propose holding community catch-up sessions in the library at night. She said she was against putting sewage in the harbour.

Peter Storey

Two days before the nominations closed Peter saw that there were only two candidates.  He thought that there needed to be an election so people could  assess Board members, so he put his name forward. He said that with him, people knew what they would be getting with his advocacy of WDC sticking to core infrastructure projects. He would fight Council spending money on social engineering.

During question time Peter recommended that voters should vote for one of the younger candidates rather than himself.

Peter Haworth

Peter spoke on improving recreational facilities and on developing more local jobs. he posed a number of rhetorical questions on why Raglan rates were more than 5% of income and who pays when the Council has to do jobs twice to get them right.

Kelly Clarkson (Murphy)

Kelly proposed that the Board members hould have a portfolio of areas for each person to focus on and be the community contact point for. She commented that Raglan’s diversity is not currently represented on the Board and her election would address this.

Kelly went on to propose that the Raglan Naturally community plan was overdue for an update and if elected she would propose that a new version be prepared with community involvement and input.

At a personal level, she believed that we should take responsibility for the environment.

Barry Ashby

Barry was in good form and read out two poems. The first about the automatic loo in Petchell Park. The second about the ACC seemed to have no specific link to Raglan. He said he wanted to work with the Council rather than against them. Barry was the only candidate to have an information sheet available which he handed out. One of his proposals on the sheet  was for a 40 metre tall surfboard to be built at a cost of $3 million. It would be built where the three large Norfolk Pines are, in lattice ferro cement and have a restaurant and viewing platform halfway up.

During question time Barry recommended that voters should vote for one of the younger candidates rather than himself.

When Bob opened the meeting up to questions from the floor, Dirk asked about growth pointing out that the Raglan Area School plan was based around a growing roll. All candidates appeared to support growth if it was well-managed. They liked the idea of the school roll growing. When asked whether in future they might stand for the Council, Peter and Barry said they were too old. The other three all said they might consider it in time.