April 18, 2013 9:00am by David Farrar

Wellington Region Mayoral Contests

Katie Chapman at Dom Post reports:

Wellington finally has a mayoral race.

Businessman Jack Yan has announced he will stand for this year’s local body election, challenging incumbent Celia Wade-Brown.

He is the first to throw his hat into the ring in what has been a slow buildup to October’s election – by this time in 2010 there were already four declared mayoral candidates.

Mr Yan finished third then, with 7426 votes (12 per cent) against Ms Wade-Brown’s 24,881.

Six months out from this year’s election, councillor Jo Coughlan and concert promoter Phil Sprey have also indicated they may stand.

Mr Sprey said yesterday that he would make a call mid-next week, but he was “leaning probably more towards yes than no”. Ms Coughlan said she was still “considering her options”, including standing for mayor, but she would not indicate a time frame for making a decision.

I think there will be a number of candidates.

Both Upper Hutt’s Wayne Guppy and Lower Hutt’s Ray Wallace are standing again, and no-one has stepped forward to challenge either.

Meanwhile, in Porirua Nick Leggett will be challenged by Brian Collins who placed seventh out of nine last election, with 489 votes.

I don’t think Nick has much to worry about.

Kapiti Mayor Jenny Rowan is being challenged by Gavin Welsh, a farrier who was once in the Household Cavalry.

Interesting qualifications!

Further afield, Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule is standing for the position for a fifth term and will be challenged for the third time by councillor Simon Nixon.

I doubt the result will be different to the last two times.