Thanks to Jack Yan for tak­ing the time to answer our ques­tions. 

1. You have 30 seconds to con­vince someone to come to Wel­ling­ton. What’s your pitch?
You’ll nev­er find a city with a bet­ter work–lifestyle mix. If I’m elec­ted, it’ll be the most for­ward-think­ing city in the world.

2. How do you think traffic flow to the hos­pit­al and air­port could be improved?
By redu­cing the traffic. Part of why I am pas­sion­ate about free wifi will be allow­ing more tele­work­ing and flex­ible hours.

3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data?
I’m the only can­did­ate with ideas about trans­par­ency and open source. The more these data can be opened, the more we can col­lab­or­ate.

4. What plans have do you have to improve recycling/composting facil­it­ies?
Get people involved via a city blog, and being trans­par­ent about our issues. People can learn about set­ting up their own com­post­ing bins, for example.

5. What is your policy on street alco­hol­ics?
Work­ing with police on enforce­ment. We need to get to the root cause. If it’s eco­nom­ic, it fits with why I’ve talked about job cre­ation.

6. Do you sup­port ped­es­tri­an­iz­a­tion of the Golden Mile? Why/Why not?
I sup­port great­er ped­es­tri­an­iz­a­tion but not the Golden Mile—yet. I’ve pro­posed a car­less week­end in sum­mer 2011, as a pre­lude for the World Cup.

7. What’s the last loc­al mar­ket you went to? What did you buy?
The Sunday one at Chaf­fers, and a huge bunch of bana­nas.

8. Describe your bicycle, or your favour­ite bus route?
The Air­port Fly­er goes past my street. Com­fy seats, free wifi, and friendly drivers—I’d vote for any route the Fly­ers go on.

 Thanks to Kerry for send­ing in her answers to our ques­tions. As you can see, we were ser­i­ous about only pub­lish­ing 25 word answers. 

1. You have 30 seconds to con­vince someone to come to Wel­ling­ton. What’s your pitch?
We have it all – great food, great recre­ation and art, and great night­life. It’s the cul­tur­al hub of New Zea­l­and. 93% of Wel­ling­to­ni­ans rate our…

2. How do you think traffic flow to the hos­pit­al and air­port could be improved?
We need to com­plete our plan­ning for and imple­ment a rap­id trans­port sys­tem on ded­ic­ated lanes from the Rail­way sta­tion to the Air­port and the…

3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data?
It’s import­ant to under­stand it isn’t the Coun­cil’s job to deal with Gov­ern­ment data. I have always taken the view that the major­ity of loc­al…

4. What plans have do you have to improve recycling/composting facil­it­ies?
We recently announced a new recyc­ling con­tract which will see Wel­ling­to­ni­ans con­tinu­ing to use their cur­rent green bins (used by 85% of res­id­ents) but with improved…

5. What is your policy on street alco­hol­ics?
We need to provide care and shel­ter for these people and I sup­port the Night Shel­ter. I drove a May­or­al Taskforce on this issue which…

6. Do you sup­port ped­es­tri­an­isa­tion of the Golden Mile Why/Why not?
This is and should remain the pre-emin­ent pub­lic trans­port artery, along with ser­vice vehicles and tax­is. It is a nar­row por­tion of Wel­ling­ton CBD and…

7. What’s the last loc­al mar­ket you went to? What did you buy?
Chaf­fers mar­ket last week­end. I tend to buy the fresh veges, cheese, oil, bread, and fresh fish from Yel­low Brick Road Dis­trib­ut­ors. No mat­ter how…

 Thanks to may­or­al can­did­ate Al Mansell for tak­ing the time to answer our ques­tions too. 

1. You have 30 seconds to con­vince someone to come to Wel­ling­ton. What’s your pitch?
If they don’t know how grouse Wel­ling­ton, is, maybe they’re not the sort of people we want. Pay more atten­tion.

2. How do you think traffic flow to the hos­pit­al and air­port could be improved?
Make the buses and trains free. Extend the John­son­ville line through New­town to the Air­port.

3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data?
Gov­ern­ment com­mu­nic­a­tion, and legis­la­tion, needs to be in plain eng­lish. That’s the biggest obstacle to open­ness.

4. What plans have do you have to improve recycling/composting facil­it­ies?
Intro­duce com­post­ing scheme for inner-city busi­nesses. Pro­mote com­mun­al resources, to reduce resource use.

5. What is your policy on street alco­hol­ics?
Sup­port a wet house in the city. We don’t need liquor bans; police already have powers to arrest people if they are being offensive/violent.

6. Do you sup­port ped­es­tri­an­isa­tion of the Golden Mile? Why/Why not?
Yes. Move the buses to Jer­vois Quay. Use human/electric three-wheel­ers to link to the bus routes and to car parks.

7. What’s the last loc­al mar­ket you went to? What did you buy?
Wil­lis st mar­ket- pea­nut brittle. It’s my one weak­ness. Well, that, and methamphet­am­ine.

8. Describe your bicycle, or your favour­ite bus route?
A red giant. Stolen from Wake­field st while I was dangling off the supreme court. I will find it, and I will have my revenge.

Yay, we have our first response! Thanks to Celia Wade-Brown for her answers to our ques­tions.

1. You have 30 seconds to con­vince someone to come to Wel­ling­ton. What’s your pitch?
Wild nature close to cos­mo­pol­it­an centre! Kayak with dol­phins, buy eco-fash­ion, eat fresh sea­food, drink Fairtrade cof­fee and see bril­liant exhib­i­tions and inspir­ing theatre.

2. How do you think traffic flow to the hos­pit­al and air­port could be improved?
Light rail (mod­ern trams), flex­ible office hours, travel plan for hos­pit­al day shift, safer cyc­ling, bus pri­or­ity lanes, trades­people park­ing per­mits, down­town air­port check-in.

3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data?
Share GIS lay­ers between Coun­cils, DoC, NIWA and make pub­lic. Most Coun­cil decisions and data must be open while also respect­ing indi­vidu­al pri­vacy.

4. What plans have do you have to improve recycling/composting facil­it­ies?
Recyc­ling wheeli-bins for plastic, paper and tins. Green bins for glass. More NZ recyc­ling. Home com­post bins, Bokashi for apart­ments and Kai2Compost for cafes.

5. What is your policy on street alco­hol­ics?
Sup­port wet house, DHB invest­ment in treat­ment facil­it­ies. Look at root causes for people feel­ing des­pair, viol­ence and ali­en­a­tion. Lim­ited liquor ban not city-wide.

6. Do you sup­port ped­es­tri­an­isa­tion of the Golden Mile? Why/Why not?
Pub­lic trans­port essen­tial for work­ers and shop­pers. Car-free peak hour bus pri­or­ity then light rail. Bikes, ped­es­tri­ans, street trees coex­ist­ing with good pub­lic trans­port.

Now that we have a defin­it­ive list of may­or­al can­did­ates, we thought it was time we send them some of the ques­tions we’d crowd­sourced over Twit­ter ages ago. So I just sent out this list of ques­tions. We’ll print replies ver­batim, cut­ting off answers at 25 words for the sake of brev­ity as they come in. 

1. You have 30 seconds to con­vince someone to come to Wel­ling­ton. What’s your pitch?

2. How do you think traffic flow to the hos­pit­al and air­port could be improved?

3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data?

4. What plans have do you have to improve recycling/composting facil­it­ies?

5. What is your policy on street alco­hol­ics?

6. Do you sup­port ped­es­tri­an­isa­tion of the Golden Mile? Why/Why not?

7. What’s the last loc­al mar­ket you went to? What did you buy?

8. Describe your bicycle, or your favour­ite bus route?

9. When did you last use the lib­rary, a com­munity centre, or a coun­cil-run sports facil­ity?

10. Would you wel­come a cent­ral gov­ern­ment driv­en “super-city” amal­gam­a­tion of loc­al author­it­ies?  If not, why not?

11. Do you think the coun­cil has a role in fos­ter­ing com­munity web­sites? If so, how? 

12. Where do you stand on water privit­isa­tion, and why?

13. What city over­seas inspires your vis­ion for Wel­ling­ton? How?

14. Is the concept of demo­crat­ic rep­res­ent­a­tion import­ant to you?  How so?

15. What do you think about com­muunity gar­dens on pub­lic land?