Lush eyes mayoralty — time to ‘play a new tune’
BROADCASTER and Invercargill city councillor Marcus Lush says he took a long time to make a decision, but is now confident he is the right person to be Invercargill’s mayor.
The firstterm councillor yesterday announced his candidacy for the mayoralty in this year’s local body elections.
He was elected to council in February last year after a byelection triggered by the resignation of former deputy mayor Toni Biddle.
At the time he received almost half the total votes.
Cr Lush said the support of the community and other leaders led him to make the decision to run for the top job.
‘‘I put a lot of thought into it. Several people have asked me to run — even mayors from other towns thought that I would be good and that I was the person needed to take the city forward.’’
Cr Lush said there seemed to be some apathy around this election as many people had approached him to say they would not vote this time.
This was a huge concern for him.
‘‘I loved my first year at the council, but there are frustrations there.’’
His main objective was to make the city an attractive place where people would be excited to live.
‘‘We are in a situation where we can’t attract doctors, dentists. People don’t seem to be moving to Invercargill.
‘‘We need to build a place where families can’t wait to move to with playgrounds, museums — just a real liveable city.
‘‘We haven’t done that. All the focus has been on rates or in rental cars . . .’’
The Invercargill race now has nine candidates vying for the mayoral role.
Incumbent Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt, councillor Darren Ludlow, deputy mayor Nobby Clark, former NZ First list MP Ria Bond, former deputy mayor Toni Biddle, TikTok influencer Tom Morton, Steve Chernishov and Bluff Community Board member Noel Peterson are the other candidates.
While he said he had respect for Sir Tim, Cr Lush believed it was time for something new.
‘‘I just think that we need to play a new tune.’’
SOUTHLAND District Council staff have been questioned by a community board, council staff being accused of setting inflated figures and creating work that is not needed.
At a Northern Community Board meeting this week, board members told staff to ensure the information it was providing was up to date and accurate — the board cancelled $250,000 of work projects because it believed the budgets presented were unrealistic.
Board members anonymously voted against three recommended roofing projects, for the Athol and Lumsden Halls and the Lumsden Railway Station building, because each project budget looked inflated.
The council had allocated a total of $179,653 in 2019 in its 202131 longterm plan. But staff had recommended the board approve a budget increase of 40% to bring the sum to $250,000.
The new recommended budgets were $73,975 for the Athol Hall (300sq m), $103,565 for the Lumsden Hall (550sq m) and $73,975 for the Lumsden Railway Station (300sq m).
The Otago Daily Times con contacted a roofing company, which estimated an average roof replacement cost should be about $10,000 per 100sq m.
Crs John Douglas and Rob Scott both questioned the need for the roof replacements as none of the three projects was showing obvious signs of deterioration.
Cr Scott said he had made a site visit to Athol and could not find any evidence indicating the roof needed to be replaced. However, there were some boards which needed to be repaired.
He expected all the roofs would last much longer if proper maintenance was done.
The board had previously declined a 202223 budget of $61,800 to replace the Five Rivers Hall roof and spent the money on greater needs within the Five Rivers community, Cr Scott said.
Manapouri was allocated $103,000 in the same year.
Council staff told the board there was no evidence of leaks in any of the three structures at present but the replacement projects were part of the council’s asset management projects. The roofs had only been assessed from ground level.
Cr Douglas said he was surprised more detailed inspections had not been undertaken before the proposal had been submitted to the board.
An inspection would take place prior to a project starting.
However, the board was concerned if the budgets were approved the roof replacements would take place regardless of whether they were needed.
Staff assured the board the replacements would only happen if it was necessary.
Cr Douglas said the reports suggested the opposite.
Each of the projects, to be funded through the council’s reserves and loans, would have gone out to public tender.
Cr Scott said even with an inflation contingency built into the budgets, the numbers appeared to be high, which in turn was affecting rates.
‘‘These numbers seem very high to me for the roof alone. I understand putting a little bit of contingency in but it seems very high to be basing budgets on, then be basing rates off.’’
Staff said the recommendation presented to the board was written before condition assessment had been completed and they would be happy to reassess its recommendation.
Community facility refurbishments had a $1.9 million budget in the longterm plan and allowed for almost $76,000 for the Thornbury Hall roof replacement in 202425.