As October’s local elections approach, reporter Kelley Tantau continues to put the spotlight on the mayoral contenders, and asks why they think they’re fit to wear the chains.
Remedying “the atrocious shambles” of the Thames-Coromandel District Council is a driving factor in Steve Hart’s decision to run for Mayor again.
The Puriri man has released a 29-page manifesto detailing his background and vision for the district if successful in his campaign.
In it, he talks of a broken system, calls climate change “a diversion tactic for dummies” and references his exchange with current Mayor Len Salt in which the latter told Hart to ‘go F**k yourself’.
He also called the district’s current line-up of mayor, councillors and community board members “toothless, spineless, deficient and incompetent”.
Hart ran for the top job at the last local body elections, raking in 1111 votes against winning contender Salt’s 5285.
He told The Profile that while he remained the same man – “frank, blunt, and honest” – he wasn’t looking to the past to predict where he’ll land this time.
“I haven’t got any expectations at all,” he said. “My mindset doesn’t go there. You know, I’m just putting out what I’m about, what I’m capable of, what inspires me, and I’m saying there has to be dramatic change, and I’m a person that can create that change.”
His manifesto includes a motivation to see a building industry fully supported by council that eliminated “bureaucratic nonsense”.
This would include getting rid of “severe over-cost and over-sights of building and developing; fast tracking consents; and having full support to develop the utilities and services needed in any housing area and development estates”.
In 2024, it was reported that Thames-Coromandel District Council issued 11 ‘notices to fix’ over a seven-year period regarding unconsented building work on Hart’s Puriri property.
Then, in March of this year, he said council staff visited his home and carried out “an abusive act of intentional, malicious and vindictive vandalism” when they destroyed what Hart called a ‘kids playhouse’.
He said the building was, at the time, in the middle of being signed off by an independent Licensed Building Practitioner and was awaiting a certificate of structural integrity from a registered structural engineer.
He said full compensation would be sought to pay for the “abuse and destruction, reconstruction, grief, stress, harm, defamation, damages and trauma”.
However, he told The Profile last week he was not using his run for the mayoralty as a vendetta.
“I’m not that sort of person,” he said, “but the reality is – and I hear it from a lot of people besides my own personal experience – that the whole consent process is just an absolute shambles.
“I’m an architect, and I’ve been involved in the planning industry and I’ve worked for councils, so I know the whole industry inside-out and back to front. I know the functions and processes, and I know what’s efficient.
“It’s just alarming, really, to look at what’s going on, and obviously quite loudly there’s just a sheer degree of incompetence, and it’s just creating the mess we’re in. So, we’ve got to change it.”
BY KELLEY TANTAU
