I am proud and privileged to be standing as your candidate for the Papakura Local Board elections. My interest in standing as a candidate stems from working as a voluntary community organiser in the Papakura District for the last 2 years. Part of my organising role has been to work with communities on developing civil emergency planning. As a candidate I will be promoting more awareness and support for civil emergency planning at a neighbourhood level through appropriate council channels. One of the other interests I would like to focus on is ensuring council spending and accountability is more transparent and giving value for rate payer dollars. We are all looking for ways to counter the cost-of-living crisis and council should be more actively involved in trying to contain operating costs and rate payer charges. I look forward to your support and working with you all.