{"id":75118,"date":"2025-10-13T06:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T06:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/75118\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T06:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T06:23:07","slug":"local-elections-2025-whakatane-votes-for-nandor-tanczos-nice-to-have-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/75118\/","title":{"rendered":"Local elections 2025: Whakat\u0101ne votes for N\u00e1ndor T\u00e1nczos\u2019 \u2018nice-to-have\u2019 approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

With only special votes still to be counted, T\u00e1nczos is sitting 96 votes ahead of Luca for the mayoralty based on preliminary results, reversing an earlier very slim margin in Luca\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n

The former Green Party MP has been a councillor in Whakat\u0101ne since 2016.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1nczos told RNZ there were still 500 special votes to be counted but that would not change the result.<\/p>\n

Luca conceded to Local Democracy Reporting he was not expecting any reversal to T\u00e1nczos\u2019 lead when final results came out later this week.<\/p>\n

He said he felt most of those making special votes were more likely to vote for T\u00e1nczos.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy supporters have been fairly stalwart,\u201d Luca told Local Democracy Reporting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have expected the special votes to break for [T\u00e1nczos]. So I\u2019m not expecting any miracles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luca has spent his two terms on the council trying to exert downward pressure on rates.<\/p>\n

\"VictorVictor Luca looks likely to lose his role as Mayor of Whakat\u0101ne.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did my best to keep rates increases to moderate levels. That\u2019s one of the things I stood on and died in a ditch over,\u201d Luca said.<\/p>\n

He went as far as voting against two Long-Term Plans, as he considered they contained projects that would be too costly for ratepayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve just elected a mayor that was pro the boat harbour, the council refurbishment and the Rex Morpeth Recreation Hub<\/a> development,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Philip Jacobs stood against Luca for the mayoralty on a similar agenda.<\/p>\n

He advocated for staff cuts and scrapping of projects, including the Rex Morpeth Recreation Hub and the Matat\u0101 Wastewater Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\" Whakat\u0101ne mayoral candidate Phillip Jacobs also stood on a platform of controlling rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a bit more draconian than I am,\u201d Luca said, in his opinion.<\/p>\n

Between them, Jacobs and Luca have 4804 votes so far, compared to Tanczos\u2019 3607.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1nczos was humble in his victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not 100% in the bag yet, but I feel really humbled that the community has put their faith in me to be Mayor of Whakat\u0101ne District.<\/p>\n

He felt people made a clear choice on the issue of council spending on \u201cnice-to-haves\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhilip gave them a really clear choice, saying we need to suck all the money out of all the so-called nice-to-haves, and people have indicated really strongly that\u2019s not what they want.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t want a community with no life, that has no facilities. People voted for something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said projects such as the proposed Rex Morpeth Recreation Hub were not what were driving rates rises.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe that social infrastructure is just as important as principal hard infrastructure but I also believe that we have to give value for money.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople need to see that we\u2019re not spending their money unwisely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Additional reporting NZME, RNZ. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With only special votes still to be counted, T\u00e1nczos is sitting 96 votes ahead of Luca for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[836,23607,1558,15382,58831,7797,2082,305,5840,440,10934,17250,130,111,43,139,58830,58829,69,58832,13578,7676,6695,10042,165,58137,7246,41653,2240,6123],"class_list":["post-75118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-836","tag-approach","tag-been","tag-blamed","tag-ditching","tag-elections","tag-for","tag-have","tag-least","tag-local","tag-mayor","tag-mayors","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nicetohave","tag-nndor","tag-nz","tag-opted","tag-projects","tag-rates","tag-regions","tag-rises","tag-their","tag-tnczos","tag-votes","tag-welcoming","tag-whakatne","tag-while"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75118","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=75118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}