The mayor of Buller officiates over the

Buller District Council Buller District Council is the territorial authority for the Buller District of New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South I ...

. The mayor is directly elected using the

first-past-the-post electoral system First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...

. Jamie Cleine has been the mayor since the 2019 local elections.

History

Buller District was established as part of the 1989 local government amalgamation of Buller County, Westport Borough and

Inangahua County Inangahua County was one of the counties of New Zealand on the South Island. During the period 1853 to 1876, the area that would become Inangahua County was administered as part of Nelson Province. With the Abolition of Provinces Act 1876, Ina ...

. Pat O'Dea was mayor for seven terms until his defeat in 2004, i.e. he was the inaugural mayor of Buller District, but had previously been mayor of Westport Borough since 1983. In the 2001 local elections, Westport lawyer Martin Sawyers came within 335 votes of O'Dea, but in the 2004 local elections, Sawyers had a majority of 1072 votes. Sawyers retired after his three-year term. The 2007 mayoral election was contested by Pat O'Dea, Pat McManus, and Inangahua Ward councillor Graeme Neylon; McManus was elected. The 2010 mayoral election was fought by O'Dea and McManus, with the incumbent again successful. At the 2013 local elections, McManus retired for health reasons after having earlier declared that he would stand for a third term. The mayor from 2013 to 2019 was Garry Howard, who defeated three-term councillor Margaret Montgomery and Greg Hart, who was first elected onto the council in the Westport Ward in 2013.

List of mayors

Buller District has had five mayors:

References

{{Buller District Buller Buller Buller District