Nineteen nominated for Northland Regional Council

Seventeen people are expected to contest the seven remaining seats available to represent five constituencies on the Northland Regional Council at this year’s local body elections in October.

An official nomination period ended at noon on Friday, 16 August with Electoral Officer Dale Ofsoske expected to on Wednesday, 21 August officially declare two current councillors – Kaipara’s Penny Smart and Hokianga-Kaikohe’s Justin Blaikie – re-elected unopposed.

If confirmed as expected, this development would leave the regional council in the unusual situation – two months out from Election Day itself – where the fate of just five of its seven constituencies still needed to be decided.

Mr Ofsoske says for both the last election in 2016 and the upcoming Saturday October 12 election, a total of 19 eligible nominations had been received. However, in 2016 all nine seats had not been filled until Election Day itself.

This election – if the uncontested status of Penny Smart and Justin Blaikie is confirmed – voters will be left to choose seven regional councillors to fill the spots representing the remaining five constituencies; Te Hiku, Coastal North (which has two councillors), Coastal Central, Whangārei Urban (which also has two councillors) and Coastal South.

The full list of this year’s candidates in alphabetical order (surname) by constituency is:

• Coastal Central constituency (one vacancy);
  Maureen Adair, Maggie Buxton, Paul Dimery, Jeroen Jongejans, Amy Macdonald, Colin Peter Thew.
• Coastal North constituency (two vacancies);
  Marty Robinson, Dover Samuels, Bill Shepherd, Jocelyn Yeoman.
• Coastal South constituency (one vacancy);
  David Lourie, Rick Stolwerk.
• Hokianga-Kaikohe constituency (one vacancy);
  Justin Blaikie* *(provisionally elected unopposed).
• Kaipara constituency (one vacancy);
  Penny Smart* *(provisionally elected unopposed).
• Te Hiku constituency (one vacancy);
  Mike Finlayson, Colin ‘Toss’ Kitchen.
• Whangārei Urban constituency (two vacancies);
  John Bain, Jack Craw, David Sinclair.

Mr Ofsoske says voting documents for the election will be posted out to electors from Friday, 20 September and must be received by the Electoral Officer by noon on election day, Saturday 12 October.

Information about the elections generally is available from the council’s website via www.nrc.govt.nz/elections2019