John Verry, of Darfield, and Phil Freeman, of Hororata, have been elected to the Malvern Community Board following a by-election, with Verry winning the Hawkins seat and Freeman the Tawera seat.
The by-election was triggered after infighting and name-calling between former board members. Sean Ellis resigned in late August followed by chair Ken May a week later.
May took a swipe on his way out at his fellow board members saying, “I’m too old to be pissing around with children.”
He singled out Calvin Payne and Sharn Nu’u as “no brainers”, and said Ellis thought he was “god”.
But Nu’u and Ellis shot back saying May was not acting appropriately as chair, with Ellis calling May’s comments “vulgar” and “uncouth”.
Now the board is looking to move forward with council chief executive Sharon Mason ready to implement a new direction.
“We’re going to set up an orientation day in early February and we are going to bring the whole community board together and orientate everybody from scratch,” Mason said.
She said the orientation will cover what it means to be a community board member, roles and expectations.
Also to be decided is who will take the role of chair, with Bruce Russell interim chair.
Mason said the chair may not be decided at the first meeting.
“What we’re keen to do is let the new members get their feet under the table. Perhaps at the second or third meeting they can determine the chair.
“I think the key thing is they have to get to know each other,” she said.
Verry, who moved to Darfield from Auckland a year ago, was happy to get the vote from the community over others who have been in the area longer.
“I was batting a bit uphill being a newcomer with the two other people being fairly long incumbents of the area so it was quite pleasing to get there.”
Verry will try to ensure the community halls identified by the council as having low utilisation stay in the hands of the community.
Verry has held senior management roles in tertiary education. He has worked for many years as a lawyer at district councils, including manager, legal and in-house counsel, and was a legal adviser for Honiara City Council in Solomon Islands. He is now retired.
Freeman has spent about 25 years in Hororata and has been the owner of Bossman Engineering since 2013.
Freeman has been involved in school boards in the past and has been the chair of the former Hororata Reserve Committee, as well as helping out at the Hororata Trust.
Freeman’s focus will be ensuring the smaller communities are heard.
“When they got rid of all the community committees they lost their voice and contact between the community and council,” Freeman said.
