{"id":106766,"date":"2025-10-29T08:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T08:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/106766\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T08:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T08:58:10","slug":"rotorua-mayor-tania-tapsell-begins-second-term-with-fist-bump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/106766\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell begins second term with fist bump"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Tapsell declared her oath, she and Moraes shared a fist bump. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so fantastic to be returning as Mayor,\u201d Tapsell said in her inaugural address.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo do this is an honour, not only for myself, but also for my family.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tapsell\u2019s partner and parents were present, alongside friends and family of other councillors, council staff and some regional councillors. Outgoing councillor Conan O\u2019Brien was also in attendance.<\/p>\n

\"RotoruaRotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell flanked by Rotorua Lakes Council chief executive Andrew Moraes (left) and strategy, governance and compliance manager Greg Kieck at the swearing-in ceremony for the new term on Wednesday. Photo \/ Mathew Nash<\/p>\n

Tapsell used her address to remind elected officials how \u201cprivileged\u201d they are. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I will guarantee you is this council and our community board members will do all we can to be a high-performing council and to ensure we leave this world, this community, in a better place for everybody in our district,\u201d Tapsell said. <\/p>\n

She paid tribute to incoming councillors, community board members and council staff. <\/p>\n

\" Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell and councillor Robert Lee at the swearing-in ceremony for the new term on Wednesday. Photo \/ Mathew Nash<\/p>\n

Of re-elected councillor Robert Lee, whom she publicly hoped would not get back in during the campaign<\/a>, she praised his \u201cpassionate and faithful\u201d support of the community. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to have you on board and I look forward to working collaboratively with you,\u201d Tapsell said. <\/p>\n

\"RotoruaRotorua Lakes Council chief executive Andrew Moraes and councillor Te Rika Temara-Benfell at the swearing-in ceremony for the new term on Wednesday. Photo \/ Mathew Nash<\/p>\n

Newcomers Ben Sandford and Te Rika Temara-Benfell were sworn in for the first time while Merepeka Raukawa-Tait, back after a one-term absence, returned to the table.<\/p>\n

Trevor Maxwell\u2019s swearing-in was greeted with a haka from the public gallery, as he entered his record-setting 49th year as a councillor<\/a>, making him New Zealand\u2019s longest-ever serving councillor. <\/p>\n

\" Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell and councillor Trevor Maxwell at the swearing-in ceremony. Photo \/ Mathew Nash<\/p>\n

All other council and community board members also took their oaths, except for rural community board member Colin Guyton, who sent apologies for his absence.<\/p>\n

Sandra Kai Fong was confirmed as deputy mayor for a second successive term. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am very confident I have the best deputy mayor in the country, and we\u2019re going to have a great triennium,\u201d Tapsell said of her number two.<\/p>\n

After the swearing-in concluded, the meeting moved on to official business including legislative advice for the incoming council, adoption of the schedule of meetings for November and December and adoption of the 2024-25 Annual Report.<\/p>\n

The council will meet again at the penultimate council meeting of 2025 on November 26.<\/p>\n

Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.<\/p>\n

– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Tapsell declared her oath, she and Moraes shared a fist bump. \u201cIt\u2019s so fantastic to be returning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,11154,10141,682,76910,7558,6262,76912,5365,10934,2374,111,43,139,69,59966,1327,8466,72394,44160,56661,76911,1335,1865,102],"class_list":{"0":"post-106766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-begins","10":"tag-begun","11":"tag-being","12":"tag-bump","13":"tag-councils","14":"tag-fist","15":"tag-inaugural","16":"tag-lakes","17":"tag-mayor","18":"tag-meeting","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-newzealand","22":"tag-nz","23":"tag-officially","24":"tag-rotorua","25":"tag-second","26":"tag-sworn","27":"tag-tania","28":"tag-tapsell","29":"tag-tapsells","30":"tag-term","31":"tag-today","32":"tag-with"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}