KEY POINTS:
The councillor favoured to take over from Bruce Hucker as Auckland City deputy mayor, Vern Walsh, has had a chequered political career.
Mr Walsh is probably best known for taking a month-long, round-the-world jaunt with City Vision colleague Penny Sefuiva and two officers last year at a cost of $85,000.
The mortgage broker has been a popular figure since becoming a councillor in 1998 and always had the inside running to chair the powerful finance and corporate business committee when City Vision-Labour won control of the council at the 2004 local body elections.
Mr Walsh has built a strong relationship and the confidence of senior officers - and worked closely with them to implement last year's new water policy that saw water bills rise 9.6 per cent and 9.1 per cent in consecutive years.
Since the fierce debate on water in the past month Mr Walsh has backed down on his previous hard line and accepted a new water policy issued last week by City Vision-Labour, promising to stop the council-owned water company, Metrowater, being used as a cash cow.
Mr Walsh, who was once a member of the centre-right Citizens & Ratepayers group, chaired the Avondale community board between 1995 and 1998 before being elected to council in the Avondale-Roskill ward.
He will be a caretaker deputy until October's local body elections.
