Local elections 2022: Tuakau councillor encourages locals to stand for community board

Current Tuakau-Pōkeno General Ward councillor Jacqui Church says she was surprised to see the Tuakau Community Board doesn't have enough nominations. Photo / Supplied

The three candidates putting their names forward for the six-member Tuakau Community Board have been elected unopposed and will come into the office on the same day as other new elected members.

A byelection set to be held on February 17 will seek three more candidates after there were insufficient candidates when nominations closed for this year's elections.

The board members elected uncontested are David Henderson, Grace Tema and current board member Vern Reeve.

Current Tuakau-Pōkeno General Ward councillor Jacqui Church puts the low turnout down to the community dealing with the impacts of Covid-19.

She says she was surprised to see there were not enough candidates for the community board in her area.

"It's a bit unfortunate ... I heard that enough people were thinking about standing but they didn't end up on the list. Of one [candidate] I know, they simply missed the deadline."

She says she can't speak for all people in her area on why they didn't put their names forward, but she feels Covid-19 had the biggest impact.

"Covid affected a lot of people and made it hard for businesses - some are still closed... People are trying to recover [from the impacts of Covid] and it affects how much time they spend on things like local elections."

Church says other reasons could be that people are put off by the number of complaints elected members have to deal with which can sometimes make local government "not a nice place to be".

"Some people just have better things to do."

As a longstanding councillor for Tuakau, Church is passionate about the town.

"It's an extremely interesting and dynamic area, the community is very resilient. Tuakau has a lot going for it."

She says she sees community boards as an opportunity to "empower communities".

"I found that [all] our community boards do amazing things, [they] are a strong voice for the local community and our council is doing a good job in listening to [them]."

Church says there were "a lot of good people out there" and she is sure that when the byelection comes around there will be enough people standing.