WHAT I STAND FOR
I want Hamilton to be a city where people love to live, now and for decades to come.
A clean, attractive city
It's important that we can all feel proud of where we live, and that as a city we look after what we have by: - Improving the look and feel of the CBD through cleaning, maintenance, renewing footpaths and furniture, and improving lighting - Managing weeds on our streets more often - Introducing a by-law to prevent trolleys being left on our streets and getting in the river - Reducing illegal dumping through more education and enforcement, and making it easier to do the right thing
Healthy green spaces
When asked what you love about living in Hamilton, many of you have told me about how much you love our river paths and green spaces. As Hamilton grows, we will see more homes with smaller backyards, making access to green space even more important. With this in mind, my focus will be: - Purchasing land for small parks in areas planned for intensification, like the north end of the central city - Continuing to support community groups to restore Hamilton's gullies with native plants
Achieving long-term savings
A strong local economy
As chair of the Strategic Growth and District Plan Committee, I've worked on issues central to a successful local economy over the last two years, including: - Supporting central city retail through making the CBD a more attractive destination - Finding solutions to Hamilton's wastewater constraints - Fixing Hamilton's shortage of industrial land supply, so there are more affordable options to do business and produce goods here locally
Responsible Finances
Debt should not be used for everyday costs. However, as a fast growing city, debt is useful for spreading out the cost of big infrastructure projects, like roads and pipes, so that the future generations who benefit from them pay their fair share. To ensure the city is financially sustainable for our future, and to ensure more certainty regarding rates increases, we must: - Stay on track to balance the books in the 2026/27 financial year - Put in place a debt repayment strategy for the next 10 year plan to ensure we pay off major projects, like pipes and roads, by the time they need replacing. That way, we’re not still paying for old stuff when it’s time to build new again. - Deliver sustainable savings
Rather than cutting services to the community, I will focus on long-term savings through being smarter about how the council delivers services. I'm committed to: - Joining up with other councils to share costs. For example, shared IT, payroll, customer service and building consent systems. The city is already proposing to partner with Waikato District Council to deliver drinking and wastewater. - Leveraging technology to be more efficient, for example automated processing of building consent applications - Reducing the use of consultants and doing things in-house where it makes sense - Being less risk averse and more open to innovation, where there are opportunities for savings to be made