A Wellington boy was worried outgoing mayor Celia Wade-Brown would miss her mayoral chains - so he made her some new ones out of chocolate

COMMENT: Fear of prime Pukekohe growing land being lost to development seems to have become a last-minute Auckland Mayoral race issue.

Voters need to assess which of candidates looks more capable of doing so. The elections matter and so does your vote.

Please vote TODAY. Today is the last day to post voting papers to be sure they meet the Saturday deadline for the local body elections.

It seems there's little motivation, especially for the young, to have their say on who should run our towns and cities.

Local government appears to be headed towards an existential crisis - a situation in which few of us care enough about the existence

Latest figures show just 19.88 per cent of votes have been returned in Auckland, with some areas as low as 16.3 per cent.

#WillSheVote? Lifelong Local Body election non-voter Hinekia Fitzgerald hears from candidates on her journey to the polls.

The Auckland Mayoral candidates address Hinekia directly to canvas for her vote in the current local body election

Phil Goff's alarm clock will ring at 6am today. He will get up, put on gumboots and feed out baleage to the steers at his 8ha farmlet in Clevedon.

Len Brown was the Super City's first mayor. However, it's arguable how he will be most remembered.

Hinekia Fitzgerald has never voted in a Local Body election. Can two elections experts convince her why her vote matters?

Part two of the #WillSheVote series. Hinekia speaks to two Massey Uni local government experts.

From the moment you jump into the shower in the morning until you stagger back home later that night after a few post-work beers

Elections benefit from colourful, quirky, and dissident candidates - even distasteful ones. So who are New Zealand local government's current crop of outsiders?

We asked seven Auckland mayoral candidates how they would help some of our communities and their issues. Here are their responses.

Why are young people so alienated from politics? People aged 18-24 are the least likely age-group to vote in the upcoming local body elections.

COMMENT: Auckland needs a new direction set by the elected representatives not the bureaucracy.

We went to various communities to ask them what they want from a new mayor - here is what they said.

Polls say Phil Goff will be Auckland mayor. So how do the other contenders keep going ?

A joint campaign has come under fire from their opponents claiming it puts their independence in question.

Losing a leg to cancer as an 11-year-old wasn't enough to put Katrina Bungard off from standing up for others. The Howick Local Board

Growing Whanganui's population is a key issue for this year's local body elections.

Wellingtonians need a mayor who can listen, fairly balance issues, and have a bit of a laugh.

After three days of counting in the postal ballot, 5.8 per cent of the city's 1,031,667 registered voters have voted.

Lianne Dalziel and John Minto went head to head in the first mayoral debate on CTV, but it became clear during the debate that they could be great pals.

A former city councillor during the Sir Hamish Hay era is making a bid to return to local politics. Gabrielle Stuart reports.