Couper has been elected as Whang\u0101rei District Council mayor after first being elected to represent the Bream Bay area as a councillor in 2019.<\/p>\n
He said his key focus at the start of the 2025-2028 council term was to grow a stronger Northland economy.<\/p>\n
Couper said this would require the council to build stronger partnerships with central government, other Northland local government entities and with key stakeholders including businesses, iwi, hap\u016b and employers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the first instance this will involve building an environment of respect and trust within council, and with our key partners. Part of this will be a review of council expenditure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Cocurullo said he had been in touch with Couper to acknowledge the situation.<\/p>\n
Cocurullo philosophically said the top job\u2019s voting decision had been made by the people of Whang\u0101rei.<\/p>\n
He said he would now consider \u201cnext steps\u201d.<\/p>\n
Vince Cocurullo is considering his next steps after failing to be re-elected. Photo \/ Susan Botting<\/p>\n
Cocurullo did not want to comment further, saying there had been a death in the family.<\/p>\n
He stood only for the Whang\u0101rei mayoralty so is now out of the governance table.<\/p>\n
Couper however also stood in the Bream Bay General Ward where he achieved its top voting results based on preliminary figures. His election as Mayor now opens a new space in this two-seat ward.<\/p>\n
Cocurullo has been a Whang\u0101rei District Council politician for 12 years, after first getting elected as an Okara Ward Councillor in 2007.<\/p>\n
He was elected Whang\u0101rei Mayor in 2022 upon his fourth tilt for the top job. He first stood for Whang\u0101rei District Council in 2004. Cocurullo\u2019s first mayoral tilt was 2007, and he became Whang\u0101rei Mayor in 2022, at his fifth attempt.<\/p>\n
Since Whang\u0101rei became a district with 1989 local government amalgamation, six people have helmed the council Stan Semenoff, Craig Brown, Pamela Peters, Semenoff for a second time, Sheryl Mai and Cocurullo.<\/p>\n
Couper is the seventh.<\/p>\n
\u25a0 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Couper has been elected as Whang\u0101rei District Council mayor after first being elected to represent the Bream Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[836,1558,7800,57766,57764,7224,10810,15559,7797,12026,58141,57422,440,10934,111,43,139,69,64256,57765,32320,1869,57767],"class_list":["post-84110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-836","tag-been","tag-body","tag-cocurullo","tag-couper","tag-dairy","tag-defeating","tag-elected","tag-elections","tag-farmer","tag-incumbent","tag-ken","tag-local","tag-mayor","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ousting","tag-vince","tag-waipu","tag-whangrei","tag-whangreis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84110","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=84110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}