When asked, who is driving the woke agenda within the council, he replied, “A group of seven who are working together: Deb Harding, Scott McKenzie, Nicholas Connop, Patrick Holmes, Phoenix Ruka, Carol Peters, and Ken Couper…Because we have that woke block at the top, every time it gets hard, they take the soft option.”
Eleven of the 14 elected representatives on the WDC are seeking re-election. We are astounded by the disconnect between the election promises being made by some candidates and their voting record. Actions speak louder than election waffle, so LETTERBOX has tabulated the way the mayor and councillors have voted on critical decisions.
It’s a question that many are
asking and the answer is relevant to Whangarei.
Barry says, “It's the same reason why one of the country's most revered mayors in recent years, Dame Kerry Prendergast, lost her nine-year grip on the city's mayoralty to another unfathomable choice, Celia Wade-Brown. It's not because both Whanau and Wade-Brown are Greens and it's not because both of them love cycleways, despite vocal ratepayer opposition to the amount of money being spent on Wellington cycleways. It's because of the single transferrable voting system (STV) that saw them winning against all odds. It's the system where you vote for candidates on a preferential system, where once a quota's been reached for a candidate, they drop out and the votes for the second preference kicks in - and so on until a winner is found.”
