Sophie Barker said she would be a "visible mayor" with bold ambition.
The city had to be safe, strong and climate-resilient, she said.
Lee Vandervis decried the predicted levels of the Dunedin City Council’s debt, he wanted to see development of land beside Otago Harbour and said there should be a pause on developing the $92.4 million Smooth Hill landfill.
He was also unhappy about bureaucracy of both the city council and Otago Regional Council.
Twenty-one candidates for the city council had their say yesterday on the second night of a two-part forum at the Opoho Presbyterian Church.
Mayoralty candidates Andrew Simms, Marie Laufiso and incumbent Jules Radich were among the 22 people who made their cases on Sunday.
Yesterday, meeting host Phil Somerville offered a series of puns and, after again struggling with the pronunciation of candidate names, he largely dispensed with their surnames.
The stag roarer, used to keep candidates to time, was not required much.
Council candidate Lachlan Akers urged voters to include young people in their rankings for council.
As well as himself, he then listed them.
He was immediately backed up by Green Party candidate Rose Finnie, who described herself as a GenerationZ candidate and said the council needed to look after the interests of young people.
Jett Groshinski, endorsed by the Labour Party and who is another younger candidate, said cutting rates would be the wrong recipe for the city.
"That’s not leadership — that’s giving up," he said.
Other prominent themes from the evening included concern about homelessness and climate change.
Andrew Sutton, on the Future Dunedin team ticket, said the council needed to fix its culture, get its direction right and sharpen the focus on essentials.
John Chambers said it was important to keep fighting for the city’s new hospital and he noted the council did not in the past year deliver all the capital spending it said it would.
Jo Galer wanted to keep a close eye on proliferation of jobs and use of consultants.
Heike Cebulla-Elder said obsession about cars was the worst thing about Dunedin.
