Gill -- Far North needs a new district council

Former journalist Peter Gill has launched his second Far North mayoral campaign with a simple message — “We need to get away from all the old councillors and start this council afresh.”

Mr Gill, who lives in Waipapa, unsuccessfully challenged incumbent John Carter in 2016, and last year went within a few votes of winning a council seat in a byelection.

He said last week that his support has grown within the community each time he had stood for election. He had only lived in the Far North for six years, but says scores of people had approached him with “many tales of woe” about their dealings with council staff.

“They know I am interested and concerned. They know that I believe that council staff have hijacked the organisation,” he said.

Infrastructure remained “almost criminally negligent,” he said, with many roads in a dangerous condition. He knew that the council could fund instant solutions to everything, and he also knew that parts of the North had gained hundreds, even thousands of new residents.

The council seemed unprepared to meet those growing needs.

“Councillors tripping off to China all the time for reasons we have been given sparse information about is one example of why people living in constant dust storms on unsealed roads get riled up,” Mr Gill said.

“It’s as though the Chinese matter more than longstanding Kiwi ratepayers.”

And the “appalling handling” of dog legislation was “spectacular in its clumsiness.” Many dog owners were still reeling.

“A number of councillors

‘They

know I am interested and concerned. They know that I believe that council staff have hijacked the organisation.

Far North mayoral candidate Peter Gill

(pictured)

have been there for quite a while. They could be seen to be locked in to some kind of strange and old-fashioned thinking,” he added.

“I think it’s time for a cleanout and a total restart. And that is my promise.”