Martin makes mayoralty bid official 02.08.2007 By JOHN MASLIN
HE SIGNALLED his intent in March and now it's official - John Martin has filed his nomination as a candidate in the Wanganui mayoral race in the October local body elections.
Mr Martin finished second to Michael Laws in 2004, and is the second nomination lodged at the Wanganui electoral office.
Born and bred in Wanganui, Mr Martin spent a total of 16 years in the New Zealand and British armies before carving out a career with American Express. He finished as global vice-president of the company s real estate division.
He and wife Brenda returned to their home city six years ago.
Mr Martin has underscored his opposition to party politics in local government by standing as an independent in 2004 and said his position had not wavered.
His campaign is under way, but he expected it to gather momentum from next week. He said he had already been asked by a growing number of groups to speak to them.
This no doubt indicates a huge amount of interest in the city about this upcoming election, he told the Chronicle yesterday.
A virtual unknown three years ago, Mr Martin's performance at the polls was one of the big surprises in then and he expects to go one better this time.
If the contact I've had from right across the community over the past four or five months is any indication there is a large number of people not happy with the way Wanganui is currently being promoted.
He indicated he had a number of policy issues that he would be releasing in the coming weeks.
Mr Martin said if he had one problem at the moment it was trying to limit the number of people on the campaign team.
From going it alone last time, there's a huge difference this time with well over 200 people on the campaign team and every day I m fielding more calls from people offering to help, he said.
Meanwhile, Vision Wanganui yesterday named its first five candidates for the district council elections.
The five are all current councillors and include deputy-mayor Dot McKinnon, Murray Hughes, Nicki Higgie, Marty Lindsay and Philippa Baker-Hogan.
As of late yesterday none of the candidates had lodged their nominations with the electoral office.
Vision Wanganui said it would be naming a mayoral candidate, along with more district council, rural community board and Horizons Regional Council later.
Nominations opened last Friday and close at midday on August 24. Postal voting runs from September 21 until midday on Saturday, October 13.