New Queenstown mayor: It's 'getting our own house in order'
Queenstown's new mayor has pledged to stay grounded in the community's wishes and to empower councillors to perform at their best.
John Glover won more than half the preliminary votes, to unseat incumbent Glyn Lewers, following three earlier unsuccessful bids for council in 2013, 2019 and 2023.
Glover credited his success this time to "giving people hope, and being authentic."
"Being the sort of person that you can imagine sitting down, having a cup of tea with - I think that's really important in the world right now and I think that's resonated," he said.
Glover campaigned on restoring public trust in the council, listening to the community and ensuring better value for ratepayers.
"It's essentially getting our own house in order, and we need to do that because we have some big challenges coming and we need the community to have our back," he said.
"What we've seen today with the results is people want things to change, and they want us to act on all the things we've heard during the campaign. It's a great honour to be chosen to do that."
Glover said he wants to look into bringing in a Crown observer to investigate the council's handling of issues at the Shotover Wastewater Treatment Plant, as well as its management of the $130 million arterial road project and other contentious developments.
"A Crown observer might be one way to do that, but that would be a decision for the whole council to make," he said.
He has also proposed a "financial reset" for the council and said he would like to draw on members of the community to help.
"What I have heard is there are so many people in the community that want to help us do better. They don't want to be sitting on council, they don't want to be part of a committee, but they've got lived experience, they've got skin in the game - whether it's procurement or budgeting or developing infrastructure," he said.
"One of my suggestions which I hope to get going is to establish an advisory panel for the finances - people that can come in and do the financial reset that we need to do so we can buy things better, negotiate better, and focus on how we bring projects to fruition and minimise overspend."
Glover is the co-owner of a wilderness retreat in Kinloch, near Glenorchy, with his wife, and is the former chief executive of the community group Shaping Our Future.
Joining him on the new council were Heath Copland, "Q" (Samuel) Belk and Melissa White for the Arrowtown-Kawarau Ward; Matt Wong, Gavin Bartlett, Stephen Brent and Jon Mitchell for Queenstown-Whakatipu; and Nicola King, Quentin Smith, Niki Gladding and Yeverley McCarthy for Wānaka-Upper Clutha.
For the Wānaka-Upper Clutha Community Board, Simon Telfer, Kathy Dedo, John Wellington and Chris Hadfield were elected.
Just 32.9 percent of eligible voters took part in the election, with 10,248 votes cast.
