And he means it literally — as mayoral candidate and King of the Silly Hat Party, his policies include carpeting roads, heaters on street corners (excusing Castle St) and knitting a blanket over the Octagon.
The 18-year-old law student is running as Flynn Nisvett — "a stylistic choice" — with a view to lifting spirits and temperatures in Dunedin.
"There’s obviously heaps of problems with council, we’ve already got a quite a few jokers in," Flynn said.
"Namely, the problems really start with the weather and under the vibe of council.
"There’s already hat representation through [councillor] Mandy Mayhem, but I haven’t quite touched base with her yet."
Mandating optimism for the council would be the first point of action, Flynn said.
"And obviously warming up Dunedin because it’s pretty atrocious that we’ve had a mayor in for 11 seasons and it’s just still really cold."
His favourite policy was replacing notes and coins with a new currency of chocolate fish — "because money is obviously the root of all evil".
Flynn said he had a greater focus on students than other mayoral candidates.
"None of them are offering really solutions to the problems that are actually impacting you.
"At the end of the day, it’s the status quo for weather."
Silly Hat Party consort Josh Harford was running for mayor of Wellington on a platform to de-wind the city.
As the Otago Daily Times went to print, Flynn was formally nominated for Dunedin’s mayoral race alongside Doug Hall, David Milne, Future Dunedin’s Andrew Simms and current city councillors Sophie Barker and Cr Mayhem.
They are expected to be joined by incumbent mayor Jules Radich, city councillors Lee Vandervis and Carmen Houlahan and Greens candidate Mickey Treadwell.
Nominations close at noon on Friday.
