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?