At an extraordinary meeting of the Waitaki District Council yesterday, June Slee, of Otekaieke, was officially sworn in as councillor for the Ahuriri ward, after she was elected unopposed in a by-election in December.
The by-election was announced immediately after the October local body election as no candidate was put forward for the ward.
Cr Slee, who was an Environment Canterbury (ECan) councillor representing Waitaki from 2004-07, said she expected life around the Waitaki council table to be much different from her experience in Canterbury.
''It seems to me that party politics are just absent, whereas on ECan they dominated every minute.''
The Waitaki councillors were all ''well and truly focused on the issues here'', she said.
She intended to particularly focus on representing rural people from across the district, she said.
After her swearing-in, Cr Slee was appointed to the council's assets committee, community services committee, grants and awards committee, upper Waitaki zone committee and hearings committee, and was also named as the council representative for the Ahuriri Community Board.
