Local Body elections
Last week we discussed how much – or little – Waipā District Council was spending on print advertising for the election campaign.
If your digital feed is full of Waipā adverts, that is where your ratepayer money is going. Soon your You Tube feed will be full too of ratepayer funded videos (see below).
And this week we can report one candidate got grumpy with us because they thought we were going to be providing “all the media with the elections” after asking if we would advertise a candidates’ meeting for free.
Digital coverage? Check out cambridgenews.nz and teawamutunews.nz and click on Elections 2025 to find free Waipā specific content.
Edible signs
Susan O’Regan’s husband John Hayward puts an electric fence around a billboard to prevent the cows from eating it.
Livestock have taken a particular liking to Susan O’Regan’s election signs. She chose to use 100 per cent recyclable, environmentally friendly materials… which stock have taken a liking to and have now been fenced off. It is recreating history. O’Regan’s late mother Katherine O’Regan’s signs in the same paddock when she was campaigning for Parliament were eaten by goats.
Susan O’Regan’s signs eaten by the cows.
Candidate videos
Talking about the videos, filming starts Saturday on the Waipā District Council candidate videos. Each candidate will be asked the same four questions and there will be a 90-second time limit for all four questions. Candidates will have a timeslot of 20 minutes each with the council’s videographer.
The questions are: Tell us about yourself, what’s the biggest challenge facing Waipā, Why do you think you are right for the role and What’s one thing you admire about our community and one thing you would change?
Councils across the country are filming candidates this year in an attempt to get voter numbers up.
Clean up time
Graham Jull cleans up the welcome sign
Te Awamutu-Kihikihi candidate Graham Jull celebrated Te Awamutu Rotary’s 80th birthday last week cleaning up the town’s welcome sign on Kihikihi Rd. Jull is acting president which means he gets the tough jobs. The club became chartered on August 20, 1945, and now has a membership of 35, a third of which are female.
Rimmington out
Former chair Russ Rimmington has withdrawn his candidacy for Waikato Regional Council for health reasons. The former Hamilton mayor and veteran local body politician was to have stood in the Hamilton constitutency.
Russ Rimmington
