Just six months into the job, Bell\u2019s tenure was marred by controversy, leaks, boycotts, stand-offs and resignations. <\/a><\/p>\nThere were nasty rumours about salacious photos and Bell\u2019s sexuality, with mud slung at the opposing candidate by both camps, RNZ reported. <\/p>\n
Bell and then-chief executive Parry shared a hostile relationship which left communicating through an intermediary.<\/p>\n
An aborted vote of no confidence in Bell followed, as did petitions calling on Parry to resign, failed mediation, and ultimately Parry\u2019s resignation and a new chief executive being appointed.<\/p>\n
Bell reflected on that tumultuous period in an interview with Newstalk ZB\u2019s John Cowan in June 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like quite a different reality that I was living a year ago,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time last year, I was being asked to resign and I had votes of no confidence and all sorts \u2013 that was quite horrible back then. But like anything, you stay strong and you hold up against adversity and you carry on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bell conceded he considered resigning amid intense pressure from inside the council, but ultimately decided it wasn\u2019t fair on the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a split second [I thought about it]. It\u2019d be naive to think that I didn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bell, 26, has received 2917 votes compared to 1270 for his sole opponent, Gore businesswoman Nicky Davis. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[836,74,1558,2033,15361,1559,2950,6150,5205,26519,127,7557,6097,7797,56523,56520,18087,440,10934,111,43,139,7805,69,1118,4517,56522,8466,21694,1335,1529,56524,5905,5977,1530,56521],"class_list":["post-71306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-836","tag-after","tag-been","tag-bell","tag-ben","tag-called","tag-confidence","tag-conflict","tag-council","tag-councillors","tag-despite","tag-district","tag-down","tag-elections","tag-gore","tag-gores","tag-issued","tag-local","tag-mayor","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-past","tag-reelected","tag-second","tag-step","tag-term","tag-three","tag-tumultuous","tag-vote","tag-which","tag-years","tag-youngest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71306","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=71306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}