Dunedin city councillor Teresa Stevenson was left out on a political limb yesterday, finding little support among her peers for a low profile appointment to a policy steering group.
The Cargill ward councillor put her name forward at a planning and environment committee meeting to be included on a steering group dealing with the council's heritage strategy, but while she found a seconder for the proposal, that was the extent of the support.
Cr Stevenson lost her role as deputy chairwoman of community development after the last elections, and was the only councillor not to win any appointments, something Mayor Peter Chin said at the time was because there were more councillors than positions, and he wanted to bring "experience and different thinking" to the council.
Yesterday, Crs Fliss Butcher and Dave Cull were nominated to sit on the heritage buildings economic re-use steering group.
Cr Stevenson, who has been a councillor for 17 years, told the committee she had an interest in the area, and did have a role on the heritage funding committee, and Cr Bill Acklin supported her bid.
Heritage policy planner Glen Hazelton told the committee it was easy for such groups to become large, and he was keen to keep it "as tight as possible".
Cr Butcher said the group could become "too unwieldy".
"We need to focus on the work, move it along quickly," she said, and "too much chat" would make it embarrassing.
Committee chairman Michael Guest said there could be a conflict of interest between the funding group and the steering committee, and he did not support her appointment.
A vote resulted in just Crs Stevenson and Acklin backing the idea.
Cr Stevenson said last night she tried "not to be annoyed by such things".
"It's not really that important in the scope of things."
But she had energy to commit to heritage, and a concern heritage buildings in the city were "slipping away".
The steering group was voted into existence and will investigate methods to encourage restoration and re-use of privately owned heritage buildings.
