Mayor of Palmerston North | |
---|---|
Style | His/Her Worship |
Term length | Three years, renewable |
Inaugural holder | George Snelson |
Formation | 1877 |
Deputy | Debi Marshall-Lobb |
Website | Official website |
The mayor of Palmerston North is the head of the municipal government of Palmerston North, New Zealand, and presides over the Palmerston North City Council. The current mayor is Grant Smith, who became mayor in a February 2015 by-election. This resulted from the resignation of Jono Naylor in October 2014 after his election to the House of Representatives. Since the 2013 election, Palmerston North is one of the few councils that uses the single transferable vote electoral system for the election of mayor.
Council elections were annually at first, and biennial since 1914. [1] The mayor is directly elected using a single transferable vote electoral system, starting with the 2013 election, and with a first past the post system earlier. [2] [3]
The Borough Council was established on 12 July 1877. At the time, Palmerston North was an isolated village in the midst of a native forest that covered inland Manawatu. The population was approximately 800 people. The first elections on 9 August 1877 returned a council with nine members, including George Snelson as the first mayor. Snelson is regarded as the founding father of Palmerston North. [4]
On 1 August 1930, Palmerston North was officially gazetted as a city, the 7th settlement in New Zealand to have reached the then-threshold of 20,000 inhabitants. With that, the Borough Council became a city council. [5]
Jono Naylor was first elected mayor in 2007, [6] and resigned that position after being elected to the House of Representatives in the 2014 election as a list MP for the National Party. [7] Grant Smith was elected in his place in 2015, [8] with the previous deputy mayor Jim Jefferies having been acting mayor in the intervening period. [9]
There have been 29 holders of the position. The longest-serving was Gus Mansford, who held the post for 16 years. Jill White was the first female mayor in 1998, since followed by Heather Tanguay in 2004. [10] [11]
Three mayors have held non-consecutive terms:
Five mayors also served as members of Parliament: [13]
Of those, Nash and Tennent have fulfilled the role of mayor and member of parliament concurrently:
The following persons have served as mayor of Palmerston North: [1] [4] [5] [10] [11] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]
Name | Term | |
---|---|---|
1 | George Snelson | 1877–1879 |
2 | James Linton [12] | 1879–1882 |
3 | Frits Jenssen [23] | 1882–1883 |
George Snelson, 2nd time | 1883–1884 | |
James Linton, 2nd time | 1884–1885 | |
4 | Alexander Ferguson [24] [25] | 1885–1886 |
5 | Ludolph Georg West [26] | 1886–1887 |
6 | Solomon Abrahams [27] | 1887–1889 |
George Snelson, 3rd time | 1889–1892 | |
7 | Robert Edwards [28] | 1892–1893 |
8 | William Park [29] | 1893–1895 |
9 | William Thomas Wood | 1895–1899 |
10 | Henry Haydon | 1899–1901 |
George Snelson, 4th time | 1901 – 31 October 1901 | |
William Thomas Wood, 2nd time | 1901–1903 | |
11 | Charles Dunk | 1903–1904 |
12 | Edward Orr Hurley | 1904–1905 |
13 | Maurice Cohen | 1905–1907 |
14 | Richard Essex | 1907–1908 |
15 | Jimmy Nash | 1908–1923 |
16 | Frederick Joseph Nathan | 1923–1927 |
17 | Archibald James Graham | 1927–1931 |
18 | Gus Mansford | 1931–1947 |
19 | Geoffrey Tremaine | 1947–1956 |
20 | Blair Tennent | 1956–1959 |
21 | Gilbert Rennie | 1959–1969 |
22 | Desmond Barry Black | 1969–1971 |
23 | Brian Elwood | 1971–1985 |
24 | Paul Rieger | 1985–1998 |
25 | Jill White | 1998–2001 |
26 | Mark Bell-Booth | 2001–2004 |
27 | Heather Tanguay | 2004–2007 |
28 | Jono Naylor | 2007–2014 |
29 | Grant Smith | 2015–present |
Name | Term | Mayor |
---|---|---|
Alison Wall | 2001–2004 | Bell-Booth |
John Hornblow | 2004–2010 | Tanguay |
Naylor | ||
Jim Jefferies | 2010–2015 | |
Duncan McCann | 2015–2016 | Smith |
Tangi Utikere | 2016–2020 | |
Aleisha Rutherford | 2020–2022 | |
Debi Marshall-Lobb [30] | 2022–present |
Palmerston North is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatu Plains, the city is near the north bank of the Manawatu River, 35 km (22 mi) from the river's mouth, and 12 km (7 mi) from the end of the Manawatū Gorge, about 140 km (87 mi) north of the capital, Wellington. Palmerston North is the country's eighth-largest urban area, with an urban population of 82,500. The estimated population of Palmerston North city is 91,800.
Sir William Fitzherbert was a New Zealand politician. He served as Minister of Finance, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Speaker of the Legislative Council.
Palmerston North is a parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The electorate was first formed for the 1890 election and was called Palmerston until 1938. The current MP for Palmerston North is Tangi Utikere of the Labour Party. He has held this position since the 2020 election.
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David Buick was a New Zealand politician of the Reform Party. A New Zealand-born sheep breeder, he represented farming interests in Parliament. He owned racing horses and won various high-profile races. He died in office in the 1918 influenza epidemic.
William Blair Tennent, known as Blair Tennent, was a New Zealand politician of the National Party and a cabinet minister. In Palmerston North he was a dentist, and a local body politician.
George Hamish Ormond Wilson was a New Zealand Member of Parliament representing the Labour Party, farmer, author and Chairman of the Historic Places Trust. He donated 30 acres of bush and his homestead to the Crown, which is now administered by the Manawatū District Council.
Jonathan Mark Naylor, commonly known as Jono Naylor, is a New Zealand politician from Palmerston North. He was Mayor of Palmerston North from 2007 until 2014, when he was elected to the House of Representatives in the 2014 election as a list MP for the National Party. He did not stand for re-election as an MP in 2017. In 2018 he was elected to Horizons Regional Council in the by-election following the death of Councillor Pat Kelly. He was re-elected to Horizons in the 2019 local election and was appointed as Horizons deputy chair.
James Alfred Nash, known as Jimmy Nash, was a Reform Party Member of Parliament in New Zealand and a Mayor of Palmerston North.
William Thomas Wood was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament in New Zealand.
William John Hurst was a 19th-century Member of Parliament in New Zealand and Mayor of Auckland.
George Matthew Snelson was the first Mayor of Palmerston North and is considered Palmerston North's founding father. He was an ironmonger, a storekeeper and a community leader.
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Arthur Montague "Joe" Ongley was a New Zealand lawyer, politician, and cricket and rugby union player and administrator. Born in Oamaru, he later lived in Wellington, Napier, and Hokitika, before settling in Feilding. He excelled in a number of sports and Ongley Park in Palmerston North, used for cricket and rugby, is named for him. His most notable sporting activity was as a cricketer, and he played four first-class matches. He served as an administrator on the New Zealand Cricket Council and was the organisation's president. He was a solicitor and then barrister in Feilding, and became Crown Solicitor in Palmerston North. He was a member of the Feilding Borough council and was the town's mayor from 1913 to 1919.
Grant Charles Smith is the 29th mayor of Palmerston North, New Zealand. He was first elected to the Palmerston North City Council in 2013, and was elected as mayor in the February 2015 by-election when Jono Naylor resigned. He then won the 2016 election with around 17,500 more votes than his only rival. He was re-elected in 2022. He came from a background of marketing and media, selling his design business when first elected as mayor.
Augustus Edward Cheesman Craig Mansford was Mayor of Palmerston North from 1931 to 1947; the longest-serving mayor in the city's history.