Newcastle Lord Mayor John Tate is still holding out on whether he’ll run for the top job again.
This morning he launched the candidates for the Community 1 Independents team, where three candidates will run in each of the four wards.
Councillor Tate says he will make his announcement before nominations close on Wednesday.
Full list of candidates
WARD 1
Bryan Havenhand
Jason Hinton
Dr Caitlin Raschke
WARD 2
Dr Patricia Gillard
Andrew Howard
Jeanne Walls
WARD 3
Andrea Rufo
Sue O’Sullivan
Anna Kaemmerling
WARD 4
Clarice Hamling
Kim Hillery
David Horkan
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It is very reassuring to see a group of intelligent, talented, committed and courageous Novocastrians willing to serve in office.
I hope the voters will select the next council based on these traits and put an end to the current majority whose heavy-handed and wasteful actions have cost Newcastle dearly. This is the rare opportunity to right past wrongs and a great chance to rebuild trust between the Council and the Community. A Council must have broad Community support to be successful.
The age of alienation is hopefully preparing to retire.
Finally a good diverse group of community focused residents – let’s hope this next council is dominated by independents and the number of major political parties with a seat are drastically reduced.
We are all seeking an elected council who will reveal their agendas and represent this fabulous place to live. People who will seek to advocate for the whole community not just the development lobby. They must demand the highest for quality housing for all citizens and good health economic decisions for our port and industry so we can all prosper by as a city. We will need them to be on the ball especially in planning where the state government Green Paper is demanding the community become involved before Development Applications, we need the help of our councillors. We need to know they will show integrity when numbers like 13,000 ask to be heard. Locally we await the Ward one Forum on the 19th at the Hamilton Station Hotel to hear the Community 1 Independents, Greens, Labor, Libs & others answer our questions face to face. May only honest & real people be elected.
I am SO EXCITED by the quality of the candidates running on the Community Independents ticket. It’s one thing to hope for positive change in local government, but to achieve that we have to have viable alternatives to the current problematic situation. This exciting ticket presents Newcastle with real options for getting intelligent, thoughtful, energetic, concerned new blood on to our council. I have been impressed most of all by the integrity of this team of people – there’s been a lot of work put in to put together a team that can represent the diverse needs of our local community, and it’s work that’s paid off in spades. Congratulations, Community Independents Team!!!
The only thing this ticket will achieve is to siphon fig loony votes from the Greens.
If the best John Tate can muster to run for council is a group of tree-hugging nobodies, it’s simply a measure of how the once mighty, pro-business, pro-rail-cutting chameleon actually stands for nothing
Not sure who Alan Alcazar is but given the intelligent comments above supporting Community Independents by people of integrity he appears to be lacking in that attribute given his adversarial approach.For example Dr Patricia Coppice having a Phd in communications i am certain is an impressive and outstanding candidate for ward 2 …not a tree hugging Looney as Mr Alcazar would like to suggest !!!
Not sure what Jeanne Walls brings to the table, but it’s not common sense. She can’t even get the name of the Ward 2 candidate right!
Community1Independents: We’re not sure what our candidates’ names are, but they are impressive and outstanding.
It is a touch job, but they are all very experienced people.