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The Dunedin mayoralty contest has been shaken up by the entrance of city councillor Sophie Barker into the race.
She has joined fellow councillors Jules Radich, Lee Vandervis and Carmen Houlahan in seeking to unseat the incumbent, Aaron Hawkins.
The other candidates in the field are Bill Acklin, Jett Groshinski, Mandy Mayhem-Bullock, David Milne, Richard Seager and Pamela Taylor.
Cr Barker said she had been thinking for weeks about standing for the mayoralty.
"I think people want change and they want to feel like they’re being listened to," Cr Barker said.
She had been frustrated about what she saw as a lack of focus from the council to deliver on strategies that had been agreed with the community.
Cr Barker described her political leanings as "pretty central, pretty strategic", but generally issue by issue.
Mr Hawkins was endorsed by the Green Party.
Cr Radich is leading a Team Dunedin ticket, and a few candidates for the council are backed by the Labour and Green parties.
Thirty-nine nominations came in for the 14 city councillor vacancies, up from 37 in 2019.
At least three councillors in the next term will be new, or making a comeback.
Crs Chris Staynes, Mike Lord and Doug Hall did not seek re-election.
All of the city’s community boards attracted enough nominations to require an election contest in each.
A surge of nominations for the council and community boards came in yesterday morning.
One of those was for Dr Barbara Anderson, standing for the West Harbour Community Board.
Dr Anderson said she had been "umming and ahhing", but she got in her nomination form about half an hour before the deadline.
Her background is in science research and ecology and she was a Rutherford Discovery fellow.