Video - Stainless steel engineer turned wine company owner standing in Hasting by-election because she understands the rates demand
Hana Montaperto-Hendry is standing in the Hastings District Council Heretaunga Ward by-election to represent ratepayers because she says she understands the “rates demand”.
Montaperto-Hendry, a stainless stee engineer turned wine company owner, is one of a number of candidates who have thrown their hats into the ring to contest two by-elections for vacant seats on the Hastings District Council.
The by-elections were triggered when incumbent Renata Nepe resigned from his Takitimu Māori Ward to take up a fulltime job, and long-term councillor Ann Redstone stepped away from her Heretaunga Ward seat for health reasons. Montaperto-Hendry is up against six other candidates for the Heretaunga Ward seat - Brendan Grant, Melanie Petrowski, Shona Brewer, Tāwhana Chadwick, Sarah Greening-Smith and Geoff Downer.
In an interview with Hawke’s Bay App, Montaperto-Hendry, who was shoulder-tapped by Redstone to replace her, said that she understood money.
“I can forecast finances like there's no tomorrow. I've had none, I've had some, and I can stretch a penny. I'm not afraid to listen. I'm an open book. My cell phone number's there. Give me a text. I'll answer as soon as I can.”
“Basically, vote for me for honesty and someone that's going to represent you and your voice and listen to what you want.”
Montaperto-Hendry owns Hawke’s Bay’s Saorsa Wines Limited with her husband Alex, who is the head winemaker at Linden Estate. They have had the business for about 15 years.
“We make our own wine and we purchase fruit from growers. We do that all hours of the night. When I met Alex, I was starting an apprenticeship as a stainless steel engineer, so I make wine tanks, he makes wine essentially.”
She said that there were many issues facing the Council, some of which she would only fully understand if she was elected.
“There will be more issues than I even understand. Until I get in and peel back some Band-Aids, I won't really even probably know what I'm talking about.”
“But some of the issues, communication. Communication between the communities is huge. Transparency.”
“Community wellness and community resilience is number one my list. The other ones would be infrastructure.”
Asked what community resilience and wellness was to her, Montaperto-Hendry said that it was a well put together community plan.
“It is a supported community by council, but it has to be community led. We saw, post cyclone, that there were communities out there that were out in the open and they had nothing and no support that they managed themselves.”
“I think a resilient community is a community that we can pull the skill sets in the community. There are so many that are amazing. And then the council come in and help that and support where they can with their knowledge, with their funding, with branching out into other councils that have already either been through this or have done more research in this. A resilient community can look after itself with council help.”
With regard to the $400 million debt that the Hastings District Council has, she said that there were several steps that the Council could take to minimise the rates increases.
“We are not going to stop them. They're not all of a sudden going to go backwards. The debt doesn't all of a sudden go away. It's like taking out a mortgage. The interest rates go up, everything changes. You still have to pay it. We can't argue that, we can't change that.”
“We are not going to magically get out of debt, especially post cyclone, post pandemic even. There'll be a couple of things we can do. We can prioritise our expenditures, we can review the budgets, and we need to do the budgets and expenditures fastidiously.”
Montaperto-Hendry says a key is to look at where every penny is going and how it is being spent.
“We have to hold people accountable and whatever they've said they're going to do, they need to do it and they need to do it cost effectively. I don't have time for mediocre Hawke's Bay doesn't have time for mediocre right now.”
She says that another course of action for the Council is to collaborate with other councils.
“I do not ever want to merge them. I don't think that would work here. However, we need to work with them. We're all paying the same rates. So we need to work together there, I think. That's going to save us some money and hopefully stop more rates increases.”
Montaperto-Hendry also called for a commitment from central government.
“Can they help us with roading? How far can we push central government to help us help ourselves? Which again stems from how do the communities help themselves? We need council to help themselves. We need government to let us help ourselves. We need to encourage economic development.”
The Hastings District Council says that voting papers will be delivered to letterboxes of eligible voters (Heretaunga and Takitimu wards) around May 2. Voting papers must be returned by noon on the closing date: May 24
More information on the process, including candidate information and nomination forms, will be made available before February 29 here: hastingsdc.govt.nz/our-council/elections.
Photo: Richard Wood
Hawke’s Bay App is approaching all candidates for interviews before the elections.
Andrew Austin – Editor, Hawke’s Bay App – andrew@hbapp.co.nz
Watch the accompanying video to see the full interview with Hana Montaperto-Hendry.
