NCC mayoral race: Candidate betting Nelsonians 'ready for something different'

“Nelsonians are ready for something different, and there’s a growing acceptance that actually the past decades, and the way we’ve approached council projects and the politics surrounding them hasn’t been as constructive as it could have been.”

O’Neill-Stevens, running for both the mayoralty and a spot on the council, said his decision to run for both comes down to his desire to serve the city taking precedence over what role he takes in that service.

He said he expected one of the biggest challenges for the council and the community in the coming years would be change.

“We still don’t know what scale yet, but we’ll have local government reform at least, Three Waters, but also a new mayor, new council, and a new chief executive. It’s not unprecedented, but does provide challenges – and it adds an opportunity to move on from some of the mistakes of the past.”

He said he was getting “the age question” less and less as time went on and people got the chance to see him in action.

“The real question is what kind of experience you need in leadership, because there’s no uniform experience,” he said.

“We’ve got 52,000 people living in our city – we have 52,000 different experiences. We need someone who can bring them together.”

He said he had been paying attention to the candidates running for council, and had noticed “some clear themes”, and he thought there were enough areas of shared goals that a future council would be able to find agreement on.

He said his own goals included amending planning rules to enable more housing density around key services and centres, and locking in the public transport gains in train – both in terms of increased, improved bus services and the new bus hub.

He was also keen to deliver a community-wide climate action plan, highlighted by the recent severe weather event and ensuing floods and landslides.

“The rebuild itself is one opportunity to build back better,” he said, adding that it was key to accelerate preparation for future coastal inundation and flooding.

“I’ve got ideas, but I think it’s more important that it’s a community conversation.”

He said he was still concerned about the site of the new library project, something he had “consistently raised concerns about”, but overall the council had “the cart in front of the horse”, despite the existing Elma Turner Library no longer providing the necessary level of service.

“We went out with an eye-watering price tag without first saying what’s going into it.”

Another eye-watering bill coming up for the council was water infrastructure renewals, he said, which was why he agreed that the case for reforming Three Waters services had been made, though he was not completely sold on the current proposal.

“I still have concerns particularly around stormwater ... we need that whole catchment approach.”

Election papers will be making their way into letter-boxes for the local-body elections on October 8. Nelson has seven candidates for Mayor. For the first time the council and mayor will be elected by the Single Transferrable Vote system.