Team Motive to Achieve Council Control

By John Freer

Taking a team approach to secure control of the Thames Coromandel District Council is the aim of one mayoral candidate at the coming local government elections.

Coromandel’s CFM will be interviewing all candidates as some time or another in the election lead-up, this week the opportunity was provided to Whangamata’s Patrick Kerr.

As was the case with candidates in the 2022 campaign, Kerr is calling for real change. He wants change because he believes the council is dysfunctional, it’s wage bill is too high, rates are unsustainable, there need to be greater community empowerment and council must focus on its core business.

There is little to no difference here to what potential voters heard three years ago.

Where Kerr does present some new options, and this one does have some long-standing local government politicians searching their memory banks to see if it has previously been tried in the Thames Coromandel district.

He is aiming to use a team approach to not just win the mayoralty, but secure control of the entire council. He is targeting councillors on the eastern seaboard, and the mayoralty, which would provide a one vote majority enabling Kerr, if mayor, and his team to control the council.

Two public presentations to date which I have attended, and this interview, clearly display an intent to use the east coast to win council control. Kerr has talked about 75 percent of the rates coming from the east coast, with residents in his town, Whangamata, being unsure as to what they receive for this.

He said if they were “really successful” and had six councillors and the mayor, they could really push things along and undertake change.

As to names, these may not be known until around when nominations open in early July. Kerr t30old me he was in discussion with a core group of very talented people who are thinking strongly about putting themselves forward.

A couple of other novel aspects being the use of volunteerism to drive economic development plus he raised greater use of “the blue highway” – this was a favourite of the current mayor at the last election, and nothing has eventuated other than the white elephant called the Kopu Wharf.

Social issues – we asked about how Thames should handle its homeless mangrove dwellers and was this a matter for council, Kerr passed the buck on this to Police to deal with.

The question of community empowerment – the key here is to take away the control from the centralised bureaucratic powerbase, and instead push it out to the local community boards and wards. This would include a percentage of ward rates going to boards so they had more clout and could assist in delivering what their locals wanted.

When it comes to the Māori Ward, Kerr has openly stated he does not support them but he is prepared to work with the successful candidate.

As to the man himself, he has tried most things from gold mining to residential and commercial property development, planting pine trees, being a restaurateur, sailing and now chairman of Enterprise Whangamata.

What is missing is any involvement in local government, it will be interesting to see if he can add that and mayor to the list.

Open the link below to hear our interview.