Pro-Stadium Group Remains On Council

After the election, a 7-strong pro-stadium group remains on the Dunedin City Council. These are:

• Acklin
• Hudson
• Noone
• Weatherall
• Bezett
• Collins
• Brown
  

They form half of the 14 member Council, not counting Mayor Dave Cull.
Voted out were ex-Mayor Peter Chin, Michael Guest, and Richard Walls.
Newly elected Councillors are:

• Richard Thomson: well-known for his service on the District Health Board, so he has experience of working with public-service bureaucracy. But he failed badly in allowing Michael Swann's massive fraud to go on for so long. I hope that he has learned from this experience.
• Jinty MacTavish: well known for her "Green" credentials, but has almost no experience of the real world. A vocal proponent of the Global Warming scare. Unfortunately for her, this position is becoming increasing hard to defend as global temperatures have not increased as predicted.
• Lee Vandervis: makes a welcome return to the Council as a forceful advocate of reduced Council spending. At least there is now someone on who will not be afraid to ask the hard questions.
  

Dave Cull's strategy, of trying to get a majority on the Council by running a slate of candidates under the Greater Dunedin banner, has not worked. The only new Greater Dunedin Councillors, Thomson and McTavish, were already well known. Rather than voting for the slate, people have voted for familiar names such as radio announcer, Neil Collins, and entertainer, Bill Acklin.
It is going to be interesting to see how hard Dave Cull is going "Slash Operating Costs", whether the newly-elected Council will vote for this.