Mayoral profile: Olivier Lequeux

Cafe-bar owner and coffee roaster Olivier Lequeux says he will work for nothing - if he has to - to encourage councillors to keep city rates where they are.

If elected mayor, the French-born New Zealander will seek a rates freeze from next year until the next local government elections.

He says the recession continues and the council must be prudent and exercise good judgement to try to save its cash-strapped citizens' money.

He is doing the same thing, abandoning the expensive and sometimes flashy campaigning that saw him finish a distant fifth in the 2007 mayoral race, to promote the simple message "freeze the rates".

It is a message he says ratepayers have waited a long time to hear, and he thinks it can be done.

Q: Why are you standing - and why stand for both mayor and council?

A: Because I love this place. I am parochial and I want to celebrate Dunedin.

There are fantastic people in this city who are too shy to stand for the council. I want to stand to get them involved in a project to make their city even better.

I am standing for both mayor and council because I am told by people in all sorts of facets that you have to prove yourself before [you] get the top job.

I believe that I would be a better mayor than a councillor, to play the drum instead of march to it, but I do this to show people that I will also fight for basic principles as a councillor.

Q: You suggested people want to feel part of a project. Does this mean you see the mayor as head of a big community project?

A: Totally. I would involve people and be there every day for them.

I plan to keep selling coffee at the Farmers Market because the problem is - and I have used this word in the past and people do get offended - I believe people can be corrupted once they reach a certain level of power.

They can lose touch, and what I want to do is stay in touch with people, to stay around and visible and available to them.

We have council staff, such as the chief executive Jim Harland, who do the day-to-day work of the city, and my role as mayor would be to canvass as many residents as possible to see what they want.

I will be a bridge between the people and the council.

Q: Characterise the working relationship the council has with its community.

A: Inexistent, inexistent. I would say there are a lot of builders, for example, who have a lot of wonderful ideas about the ways to speed the process for building permits and that people with these kind of ideas have to have some way of engaging with the council to improve the council's work.

It seems to me that all of the managers are living on another planet. There is no leadership.

Leaders need to make the decisions based on what they learn from the community - but to do that they have to be involved.

Q: How easy do you think it would be to engage with the public?

A: I compare our council to the Kremlin. They have lost touch, totally.

For example, in the hospitality industry, where I am, there is no working platform for the council to ask about how to make improvements.

There are so many professionals that can help but we don't see them being asked to talk with the council.

We have so many fiascoes, fiascoes every day, and you just want to know who takes those decisions and who they are listening to.

Q: Is this something you have observed yourself?

A: I've not observed the council.I've stayed away because I don't want to become as other candidates have - angry or disillusioned or disenfranchised.