Mayor Cadogan suggests next mayor a done deal in final Facebook Live

After eight years and two weeks as Central Otago mayor, Tim Cadogan presented his final Facebook Live Tuesday night, where he alluded to who will replace him having already been decided.

"When a mayor resigns within a year of the next election, they choose from within their own," he told his online audience.

"Now I've got a pretty good idea of who that person's going to be and they're going to be magnificent, I'll just say that."

While the councillors themselves have been tight-lipped on who may step up into the role, Vincent councillor Tamah Alley is rumoured to have been prepped to take over the reins from Mayor Cadogan.

The looming departure has loosened Mayor Cadogan's lips however, and he didn't hold back during his Facebook address on his opinion on some choice topics he previously has chosen to speak far more diplomatically about.

On the now shelved proposal by Christchurch Airport to build an international airport in Tarras: "Stupidest bloody idea I've ever heard of".

He said sitting in Central Otago he can easily access international airports in Dunedin, Invercargill and Queenstown and it is his view the additional infrastructure would be redundant.

"We don't need it...To me it is a complete failure of ourselves as a nation if that goes ahead."

He said if it did there would be planeloads of people that would land in Central Otago only to stay a night in a big hotel before moving through to Queenstown, Wānaka, and Milford Sound.

"We will just simply be a repository for these people as they go about their tourism....Tarras Airport will scuttle that 'World of Difference' (brand), and I hope like hell it doesn't happen."

The mayor also made a perhaps surprising attack on Dunedin City Council's 'Save our Southern Hospital' campaign, which is set to travel the region in the newly minted 'Cliff' ambulance.

While acknowledging Maniototo, Dunstan and Lakes District Hospitals, he said the services they offer are limited, arguing an inland Otago hospital has to be on the cards considering the area's growing population.

He thinks big investment in Dunedin will come at the expense of Central Otago and Southern Lakes, and people need to wake up to the fact.

"Part of that hospital was based on us continuing to go down there, so don't for a minute, please, think you can have a dollar each way on this, because you can't.

"There's not enough money to go around. Money's either going to come to inland Otago or it's going to go to Dunedin and, I'm sorry, but, signing up to say 'I support the Dunedin Hospital' that's akin to saying I support our people continuing to travel to Dunedin for most of their tertiary hospital needs for the next 30 or 40 years.

"If you're comfortable with that, knock yourself out. Personally, I'm not, and I think we need to stand up on this one."

He supports Central Otago continuing to align itself with Southern Lakes and move away from its traditionally Dunedin-focused outlook.

"We're growing at, kind of, ten times the rate, if you look at both of us together, that Dunedin is growing at...We as a community in Central Otago need to be realising our future lies to the west and not to the east."

The mayor has long refused to engage with Crux, declining any opportunity to respond to questions from reporters, but his Facebook Lives have been a regular fixture, although last night he admitted they were "one-way traffic".

He took the opportunity in his final appearance to "do some reminiscing, some crystal ball gazing, and...tell a few war stories".

He spoke of the challenge of leading the district through the 2017 Roxburgh floods, as well as other intense snow and rain storms, and the pandemic, retelling a story from the heady first days of the global event hitting home here.

He said Ministry of Health staff informed him that based on what they had seen overseas and his district's ageing population they needed him to "go and seize a cool store because you're not going to have room for the bodies that are coming".

The mayor defended his willingness to engage on the Labour Government's controversial three waters reforms, confronting allegations made at the time that he was pro-Labour.

He said he thought he had been "relatively apolitical", suggesting it was shaking up water infrastructure investment that had always been his motivation.

"I'm telling you now, I'm supporting National's three water reforms every bit as strongly, because we need a solution to the problem."

He described the opportunity during his three terms to head to Wellington as mayor "a buzz".

Such opportunities have, potentially, set in motion his next career steps: In the coming weeks Mr Cadogan will be finding his feet in Wellington again, starting a new role with national water regulator Taumata Arowai.

The mayor admitted defeat in having any real impact on housing availability and affordability in the district during his time.

"I've failed, totally, in the housing space," he said, before clarifying the statement with, "Or, I can look it and go, the problem was too big for a mayor or a council to fix, I didn't fail through lack of trying".

He had a laugh recalling an interaction with an older constituent from Māniatoto, who one day cornered him with an envelope in which a black and white photo was enclosed.

It showed "lots of utes and trucks and chaps, all men I think, a couple of graders", he said, and the woman told him, "That's the Maniototo county council roading fleet we had before you bastards from Alexandra stole it and I want it back".

"I just thought it was a crack up. Bless her."

The recollection may have seemed less funny to residents in Cromwell, where the mayor this year has overseen some controversial moves to shake up the way council assets and services are managed and funded, and potentially curtail the power delegated to the community board.

He described becoming mayor after a stint on a community board a "hell of a big step up" and he thanked deputy mayor Neil Gillespie and other councillors past and present, as well as community board members, for their support.

"A mayor as raw as I was, who asked questions that really I should have known the answers to before I put my hand up, I could have been jumped all over if I hadn't had such decent people on the council."

He called his time in the role as "the opportunity of a lifetime", particularly considering the "unusual" situation of having his brother, Bryan Cadogan, as mayor of a neighbouring district at the same time.

"There's been so many incredible experiences and incredible people I've met."

Councillors close ranks on who Central Otago's next mayor may be

Main image (Screengrab): Central Otago mayor Tim Cadogan delivers his last regular weekly Facebook Live broadcast on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, after earlier flagging he will be resigning from the mayoral role to move to Wellington to work for national water regulator Taumata Arowai.