Lee is one of five re-elected general ward councillors, along with Wang, Kai Fong, Brown and Paterson, with Sandford newly elected.<\/p>\n
Temara-Benfell is now the council\u2019s youngest councillor, but is joined in the M\u0101ori ward by the experience of Raukawa-Tait and New Zealand\u2019s longest-serving councillor, Maxwell.<\/p>\n
Barker was re-elected to the rural ward unopposed and rounds out the list of councillors for the next three years. <\/p>\n
Lee said: \u201cI\u2019m delighted to have been entrusted by the Rotorua voters to continue the job.\u201d <\/p>\n
It was a \u201cvery competitive\u201d race for council. <\/p>\n
Robert Lee and Tania Tapsell at a candidate forum evening at Waiariki FC clubrooms. Photo \/ Mathew Nash<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some very good candidates who ran for council, a real contest,\u201d he said, before congratulating the new electees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to working with them all. It will be a nice little refresh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s campaign courted controversy, with Tapsell admitting she wanted him out<\/a> and the council having his campaign video pulled from YouTube on a copyright claim<\/a>. <\/p>\n He has already held meetings with Tapsell, Kai Fong and chief executive Andrew Moraes and said they intended to \u201cwork constructively\u201d for the people of Rotorua.<\/p>\n Raukawa-Tait returns to the council table having lost her seat after 11 years in 2022. <\/p>\n She said she\u2019d had to \u201csit tight\u201d this week, to see if her close lead over Waru held, but she was now \u201cvery pleased to be back\u201d. <\/p>\n She hoped for a \u201ccohesive council\u201d with a \u201cclear vision\u201d that was evident to the general public. <\/p>\n She also praised her fellow M\u0101ori ward electees, the \u201cvery keen\u201d Temara-Benfell and \u201ctruly beloved\u201d Maxwell. <\/p>\n O\u2019Brien wished the new council \u201cevery success\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really important we support them, because if they succeed, Rotorua succeeds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He recognised the previous council had, in his view, \u201cwalked into quite a bit of a mess\u201d but believed they had left it in a \u201cbetter position\u201d after three years.<\/p>\n Waru also missed out after one term. He wished the new councillors luck and backed them to get through \u201cchallenging times\u201d ahead. <\/p>\n He said he would \u201cmiss it\u201d, but the referendum on M\u0101ori wards was his big ticket from the election. Rotorua voted to retain M\u0101ori wards by a margin of 2856 votes.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just happy the ward\u2019s still in place and that people get a chance to stand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Campaign newcomer Angus admitted she was \u201cgutted\u201d to miss out but was \u201creally proud\u201d of her campaign. <\/p>\n \u201cI really wanted to be around the table, for our people and for our beautiful city, but it wasn\u2019t to be.\u201d<\/p>\n She believed her skill set was \u201cexactly what the city needs\u201d and said \u201cnever say never\u201d to potentially running again in 2028. <\/p>\n Colin Guyton, Tina Marshall, Karen Forlong and Tina Rose were elected to the Rotorua Rural Community Board. <\/p>\n Peter MacMillan and Jennifer Rothwell were elected unopposed to the Rotorua Lakes Community Board. A by-election will be held to fill final two vacancies, one left absent following the death of candidate Phill Thomass.<\/p>\n Voter turnout was 43.27%, down on 2022\u2019s total of 46.46%.<\/p>\n Rotorua Lakes Council – Final results<\/p>\n Mayor<\/p>\n Tania Tapsell<\/p>\n General ward<\/p>\n Fisher Wang<\/p>\n Sandra Kai Fong<\/p>\n Ben Sandford<\/p>\n Gregg Brown<\/p>\n Don Paterson<\/p>\n Robert Lee <\/p>\n M\u0101ori ward<\/p>\n Te Rika Temara-Benfell<\/p>\n Trevor Maxwell<\/p>\n Merepeka Raukawa-Tait<\/p>\n Rural ward<\/p>\n Karen Barker<\/p>\n Rotorua Rural Community Board<\/p>\n Colin Guyton<\/p>\n Tina Marshall<\/p>\n Karen Forlong<\/p>\n Tina Rose<\/p>\n Rotorua Lakes Community Board*<\/p>\n Peter MacMillan<\/p>\n Jennifer Rothwell<\/p>\n *Final two members to be decided at by-election.<\/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":"Lee is one of five re-elected general ward councillors, along with Wang, Kai Fong, Brown and Paterson, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[63682,1558,2223,5205,12817,5903,5904,63678,305,21666,5365,6657,440,63679,111,43,139,69,58363,63680,5909,6443,3046,1327,38715,63681,5433,8229,102],"class_list":["post-86643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-advantages","tag-been","tag-confirmed","tag-council","tag-declared","tag-election","tag-final","tag-finalised","tag-have","tag-holding","tag-lakes","tag-lee","tag-local","tag-merepeka","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-preliminary","tag-raukawatait","tag-results","tag-returns","tag-robert","tag-rotorua","tag-rotoruas","tag-slim","tag-stage","tag-they","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86643","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=86643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Merepeka Raukawa-Tait has returned to Rotorua Lakes Council.<\/p>\n
Conan O’Brien has lost his seat. Photo \/ Laura Smith<\/p>\n
Rawiri Waru is also gone. Photo \/ Laura Smith<\/p>\n
Philly Angus. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n