Tamah Alley wins Central Otago mayoralty in a landslide

A landslide victory returned Central Otago’s Mayor to the ‘‘hot seat’’ for another three years.

Progress results with 85% of votes counted showed Mrs Alley with 5130 votes ahead of contenders Charlie Sanders with 1886 and Mark Quinn with 1318.

Humbled, thrilled and really excited was how Mrs Alley described her return to the role.

Full Central Otago District Council results including community boards

‘‘This isn’t about one person, this really about the community choosing the direction that they want to go in and in Central Otago that is very clearly forwards.’’

After a lengthy campaign which was fought while continuing to carry out the role of mayor it was a relief to get the good news.

‘‘I had a call just after lunch today from the chief executive Peter Kelly with the wonderful news that I had been elected for another three years in the hot seat.’’

Mrs Alley was appointed mayor in October last year following the resignation of former Mayor Tim Cadogan. She was selected as Mayor by the councillors as it was less than one year until the next election and the expense of a by-election was avoided.

Tamrah Alley

There were already two big projects on the Mayor agenda for the next triennium.

Bringing the community back into the council and housing were top of her list and she had plenty of ideas of how that could happen.

‘‘This council belongs to the community and I want the community to feel like that so it’s going to be very much about changing the culture — the way the community sees the council and making them feel more involved.’’

Ways to do that included trialling citizens assemblies, pop-up council hui around the district and plain-language summeries that explained how public feedback shaped decisions.

Citizens’ assemblies were a group of people from the community brought together to consider a topic that had a yes, no or simple answer. They worked through all the information and then worked with the council for a decision or, in some cases, made the decision for council.

There already one topic she would bring to the first council meeting that could be taken to a citizens’ assembly, she said.

How to select the members of the assembly was a really big piece of work and she was not 100% sure about that yet.

‘‘I’ve been having a look at ideas from around New Zealand and we will, of course, take the best of them and merge them into something even better for us.’’

Housing had been tackled by the council in the past and their options had not necessarily been very popular, Mrs Alley said.

However, there had been discussions with the Queenstown Housing Trust to see if they could expand into Central Otago, potentially by partnering with the Central Otago District Council.

Mrs Alley was planning a celebratory dinner with family and friends tonight.

Central Otago District Council

Mayoralty votes received

ALLEY, Tamah 5,130

SANDERS, Charlie 1,886

QUINN, Mark (Independent) 1,318

INFORMAL 14

BLANK VOTING PAPERS 129

Cromwell Ward (4 vacancies)

LAWS, Cheryl 1,752

BROWNE, Sarah 1,697

SANDERS, Charlie 1,381