Civic jealousy is unbecoming

OPINION: There are three types of mayors – the workhorse, the figurehead and the entertainer.

Workhorses do the hard yards and know the council handbook cover to cover while figureheads usually come from a well-known family in the district and get there for the same reason the Queen is where she is.

And entertainers – well, think Invercargill's Tim Shadbolt.

Mr Shadbolt is a civic jester. That's not to say he's devoid of smarts. And that's what makes it a little surprising that he is having a go at his deputy mayor, Neil Boniface, who is the unmistakable workhorse of the two.

A stoush has broken out in Invercargill over the city's No 1 and No 2 citizens. Mr Shadbolt thinks his deputy is getting ideas above his station, and wants to replace him. Few of the other councillors seem to agree with the mayor and the man Mr Shadbolt championed to replace Mr Boniface doesn't want a bar of the promotion.

Mr Shadbolt has told the council he has lost confidence in his deputy. The problem seems to stem from Mr Boniface's projects getting more funding than his own. Mr Boniface has had a very successful campaign to warm-up Invercargill houses with home insulation while Mr Shadbolt's bio technology venture has failed to launch. To his credit, the mayor has admitted he's jealous. But the rest of his rant is unfathomable.

It would seem that in Mr Boniface Mr Shadbolt has a second in command prepared to do the hard work, the boring stuff which allows Mr Shadbolt to be a man of the people and a very successful mascot for Invercargill. He has put the city on the map and given it a profile that has diminished its reputation as a provincial capital with little going for it.

The mayor is incredibly popular with the people of Invercargill. Unless something calamitous happens, he will be a shoo-in for next year's election.

And he has long been viewed with generosity by New Zealanders, a Kiwi original somewhere between a big kid and a small puppy. But he needs to understand he can only be who he is, the Ronald MacDonald of Southland, because other people fill in the gaps while he is off promoting the area.

One of the criticisms of the deputy mayor was that he did not make Mr Shadbolt aware of a senior staff member's drink driving charge. An omission, possibly, but it is likely the mayor was kept out of the loop because Mr Boniface handles so many matters by himself.

The fact that the media revealed the incident to the mayor, and not Mr Boniface, was unfortunate but certainly understandable. The mayor, after all, was in Mongolia of all places when Southland won the Ranfurly Shield.

He got back for the parade, though.

- The Marlborough Express

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