In the winter of 1991, I walked into the office of Waitakere city mayor Assid Corban for a meeting that would change both our lives. I had spent the last three months overseas after selling my advertising business. In city after city ideas about sustainable city development were on everyone's mind.
I wanted a chance to put those ideas in place at home – to make Waitakere a city that celebrated its people, its unique ranges and the wild west coast. That day I asked mayor Corban for a desk, an office and a chance to rebrand the west. He was not impressed.
I was told Waitakere was a dormitory city. It was filled with people who either commuted to Auckland or laboured in the wineries. They weren't going to be interested in having a greenie vision as their calling card. He sent me on my way.
Soon after I travelled down the metal road to Karekare Beach in search of direction. On an evening swim I looked back at the cliffs rising above the breakers and the ranges stretching into the distance. I thought the west needed a leader to treasure and protect that stunning environment.
By the time I got back to the beach I had made up my mind. I was going to have a go at becoming mayor of Waitakere.
It was the start of an incredible journey. I won the mayoralty at the next election on a platform of vision and sustainability. Few thought I'd be there long. No mayor had been elected for more than two terms in the west. It's now 18 years since that day and I'm finally packing my bags.
There's at last a bit of time to think about what these years have meant. At times this job has been incomparably fulfilling; at others frustrating and disappointing.
There have been moments I've felt indestructible and others where I felt I would crack under the weight of the role. There has been self-doubt, strain and stress. But those have always been overshadowed by my belief in this city, its people and the vision we set in motion that day in 1992.
The disappointments have included failing to get a Museum of Gardens in Te Atatu, a Chinatown in New Lynn or a commercial airport at Whenuapai.
We've allowed Ross Britten's horrifying landfill in Swanson to keep going and we never cheered on the concept of an urban marae for all on the shores of Te Atatu, where the ponies remain, outliving us all.
Still, our streams are cleaned and replanted from the Waitakere Ranges to the Waitemata Harbour.
We are world leaders in water use, community consultation, conservation and social justice. I saw then prime minister Helen Clark and Governor-General Anand Satyanand open our award-winning sustainable civic centre in 2006. Soon we will see that same governor-general open one of the largest public transport developments in the country at New Lynn.
Its greatest legacy is our people. Their pride in this city is palpable. It was evident when they turned up in their hundreds to pull rubbish out of our water for Project Twin Streams, when they marched year after year against family violence, when they wholeheartedly embraced being a westie on stages and screens around the country, when they took to the streets to search for our missing child Aisling Symes and finally when they pasted their cars with bumper stickers saying Waitakere is already a super city.
As for me, I did what I came here to do. Those black sands and rolling hills I looked back on at Karekare all those years ago are safe. A 50-year fight to protect them from development ended when the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act was passed in 2008. In the end, the decision came down to one vote.
It took not just my efforts, but the passionate support of our entire council, a committed community and the ancestral iwi of the west coast, Te Kawerau a Maki, to make sure it dropped in our side of the ballot box.
Critics – I've always enjoyed a robust debate. As mayor, I've never been short of one. For a while it seemed every issue of the Western Leader revealed a new letter writer who needed to get something off their chest. There's been some real beauties over the years. I have take my hat off to them. They take the time to get angry and put that anger into action.
Some may get a bit crazed with their passion and become little more than council stalkers, but they seem to like the task. Their retirement is spent crafting a letter a week.
On the rare occasion the letters are really good, they are sharp as a rapier and accurate as a dart thrower. I want to acknowledge some of the better ones. Among them was the late Malcolm Hahn and the very much alive Jim Carney.
Missing the mark has been just about anyone from Te Atatu and nearly all the people that wrote on Chinatown in New Lynn.
May I thank one and all for making the effort to scrutinise council's escalating rates, debt and responses to cracking footpaths and roads. To be honest, I'll miss you all. And I think you just might miss me. The Western Leader will be light on council business for a while so I suggest you take up pigeon fancying.
Finally, to the biggest critics of all, my family.
My beloved wife Barbara always seems to get a copy of the Western Leader before me and tends to agree with most of the angry letter writers. Although my children all seemed to ignore their-father-the-mayor in his woes, I have always been able to count on them to stick by me, even when it seemed no-one else would.
I could not have done this job without their love and support. These last 18 years have been a family affair. When it comes to the crunch, that's what really matters.
My last and greatest thanks belong to them.
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Article Source: www.westernleader.co.nz
Article By: Justin Latif
