In a matter of days Rachel Reese will exit her office as mayor of Nelson for the final time. After nine years, plenty of highs and few lows, the city’s first female mayor will be heading towards a new challenge. Nelson Magazine’s Andrew Board sat down with Rachel to discuss her time at the top.
For the first time since the 2004 local body election, Rachel Reese is not running.
The three-term mayor, one term deputy mayor and one-term “councillor in the naughty corner” is stepping out of politics (she swears she isn’t running for central government).
She says she plans to spend more time with her mum, more time with her husband and use some time to relax. She refuses to say what’s coming next but the half-smile suggests she has a fair idea.
Of the words used to describe Nelson’s first female mayor, “unorganised” is not one of them.
Rachel is a meticulous planner, so it seems safe to assume her next challenge is well known to her, even if she doesn’t want to share it with a nosy journalist.
What she does want to talk about is her achievements, and without question, they are many.
She points to the council’s improved relationship with iwi, investments in infrastructure, continued support of the arts.
She says she’ll miss the job but is looking forward to a break.
Unlike a prime minister, you don’t have (mostly) loyal party members on your team. As a mayor you’re lumped with whoever the voters elect. That leaves the mayor often trying to gain a consensus with councillors who have very different views of the world.
Rachel has seen both sides of that and she has rubbed some of her colleagues up the wrong way, despite her protestations to the contrary. “We’ve always tried to work with all councillors for the benefit of the city and its residents.”
But there are criticisms.
Some current councillors spoken to by Nelson Magazine say Rachel can be hard to work with and the culture at council this term has been described as “toxic”. But other councillors said it was Rachel who helped get things done and was able to ensure they had a consensus on issues.
Her first deputy mayor Paul Matheson says Rachel has been a “steady” mayor.
“She’s a process mayor, she’s not flamboyant, she’s quite risk-adverse. Sometimes she gets on a bandwagon and takes off and forgets that there’s people that want to be passengers as well.”
However, he went on to say that “in just about every aspect she has been a good leader”.
Her second, and final, deputy mayor Judene Edgar says Rachel has been a “very good” mayor for Nelson and has a lot to be proud of.
“Her ability to retain information, what’s going on, and legislation is really impressive. But she reads and reads and reads to keep on top of her game. I think a lot of people won't realise how hard she works. I think she’s been unfairly targeted and treated at times. She has a good sense of humour that some may not encounter. She has a genuine compassion for people and ethos of community service.”
Rachel admits to difficult moments and says the political climate has worsened in the recent years. Attacks on her and her colleagues have increased in velocity and nastiness.
That has been tough.
But, she says, the high points outweigh those low moments, and she makes her case for why she’s left Nelson in a better place than where she found it.
When Rachel does board the elevator that leads directly to her office foyer for the final time, she will be leaving on her terms, which is fitting. Her electoral success has frustrated her opponents over the years, and she believes that, if she stood, she could have won next month’s election too.
Rachel entered Nelson City Council on the Hands Up ticket in 2007. Hands Up aimed to be a breath of fresh air for Nelson, bringing new ideas and a positive approach to governing the city. Hands Up’s mayoral candidate that year, Kerry Marshall, was elected and he made Rachel his deputy and – it seemed – heir apparent.
Three years later when Rachel went for the mayoralty, she was up against two of her former Hands Up colleagues, Kerry and Aldo Miccio.
Aldo won. Kerry was out and Rachel was defeated in the mayoral race but was elected as the highest-polling councillor.
Thus began Rachel’s time in the “naughty corner”, a term she coined after being demoted by Aldo mid-term. She described the demotion as “humiliating”, but she says it fuelled her desire to stand again in 2013.
This time she finished on top, beating Aldo to become the city’s first female mayor.
Her election promises included investment in the “forgotten communities” of Stoke and Tāhunanui as well as her support for the contentious Southern Link. At her campaign launch at the Boathouse she told the 180-strong crowd that “building a southern link would be investing wisely in Nelson's future”.
Three years later she beat Pete Rainey comfortably. She stood on addressing the backlog of infrastructure projects, to progress “city-to-sea” developments, to re-double efforts to regenerate Stoke and Tāhunanui and to focus more on affordable living for families. She again backed the construction of the Southern Link.
In 2019 she faced her most crowded field yet, beating three of her council colleagues along the way.
Despite all of the election successes Rachel says she gets incredibly nervous around election day.
“Part of that is because you have this team of people who have worked their guts out for you to help you get elected. It’s a big deal to support an election campaign. Fortunately, I had a husband who was prepared to play a really big part in my election campaigns along with a lot of really, really good people in this community.”
Rachel’s husband Richard is a former professional cricket player and she says when the nerves started to kick in right before an election he’d give her “the talk”.
“He’d say, ‘well you’re not about to walk out to the wicket with a 6 foot 4 inch West Indian about to knock your head off, what’s your problem?’”
She acknowledges that standing for an election is a highly competitive game.
“You don’t do it unless you have a significant degree of competitiveness, because there’s nowhere to hide.”
But when election wins come in, they are a big high. The euphoria after her big mayoral election win in 2016 over Pete Rainey was plain to see as she celebrated with a glass of champagne at her home on the Grampians.
Once the thrill of election day is over though, the very serious challenge of governing comes to the fore.
She says the effectiveness of any council is the ability to compromise with a broad range of councillors, something that can lead to frustration.
“I didn’t get all the things through the council chamber that I would have liked. Things take longer than I wanted, and some decisions get made that I don’t think are the right decisions, but that’s local government.”
She says there are plenty of challenges around governing at a local level, one is the three-year electoral cycle that she says engenders a stop-start approach.
“From an infrastructure perspective you need a longer-term, more consistent view.”
Rachel’s final weeks as mayor have hardly been a stroll to the finish line. In August devastating flood and landslides ensured she was busy until the end.
As her tenure comes to a close, she says there will be many things she misses. The staff, her executive assistant Jenny Tyne, whom she has formed a close friendship with, and her role welcoming new citizens as part of the council ceremony.
“That’s something I’ll really miss, that is such a joy.”
Election Day is October 8 with a new mayor expected to be sworn in the following week.
Rachel’s five highlights as mayor:
-Improved relationship we have with our iwi partners.
-The fact that we kept on going with events on the back of the Rugby World Cup and with the Cricket World Cup.
-Proud of the investment we’ve made in the arts. Suter, NCMA, and financial support we’ve been able to give to the Theatre Royal.
-Infrastructure investment.
-Our community spirit. You see it most during emergency events. They are tough events, and I must say, we’ve been hammered. We’ve had floods, slips, cyclones, fires, we’ve had it all.
