Former Ōpōtiki Mayor Lyn Riesterer says if she is elected back on to council she will be there “boots and all” for her community.

Her lead up to the election, however, will have more to do with rugby boots than campaigning.

Ms Riesterer left for England last night to spend the next 10 weeks following the Women’s Rugby World Cup.

The Ōpōtiki News spoke to Ms Riesterer yesterday morning before she left.

She is standing for one of two seats in the urban general ward, where she will be running against current councillor Barry Howe and deputy mayor Shona Browne.

“I know I’m going to come up against a couple of old timers in the urban ward.”

She spoke to her commitment to the job and strong work ethic as points in her favour.

“I’m always there boots and all.”

She said she felt she still had a lot to give for the community and was a known and proven candidate.

“I have nine years’ worth of experience on council. I know what the job is about and have quite a bit of training behind me.”

She agreed it would be “interesting” to run an election campaign from overseas.

A huge fan of rugby, Ms Riesterer was watching the New Zealand women’s rugby team beat Australia at Eden Park in 2022 when she received the news that she had lost the mayoralty to David Moore.

“I’d already signed up to go back there for the Women’s World Cup Rugby this year when I put my nomination in.”

She would be relying largely on printed articles and advertising for her campaign and also on her networks of people within the community.

“Especially those who have asked me to stand again. I’ve been quite overwhelmed, particularly at the beginning of this year. Two or three people a week were asking me to please stand again.

“I’m actually relying on those people who said they were disappointed that I missed out last time. I’m relying on them to stand behind me and vote this time. It’s going to be a very interesting election.”

Ms Riesterer said she did consider standing for mayor again, “but that was a personal decision between me and my partner that I wouldn’t do that this time around”.

She said she was proud to have seen projects she had been committed to during her time on council coming to fruition.

In particular, the non-binding Māori wards referendum that was held over the election in 2022 which meant the Māori wards were not dependent on a referendum this year.

“I’m particularly proud to see that Ōpōtiki has gone with that and the council has established the Māori wards. We’ve got six years, two elections, before that gets reviewed again. I think it’s really important to ensure that is successful for our community.”

She said she was also proud of the percentage of people who voted in the district. “We were over 54 percent of people who voted. That’s way higher than the New Zealand average.”

She said the Coast, in particular, had experienced a large increase in voter turnout, which she puts down largely to the efforts of herself and the late former Coast, councillor Louis Rapihana.

“Before 2019, for instance on the Coast there was only 26 percent of the people voting. In 2019, through a lot of work from myself and through Louis Rapihana, it went up to 42 percent. In 2022, it got up to 48 percent. I’m just hanging out for the Coast to get to a point where they’re getting over 50 percent.”

It was not a time to be complacent however.

“Apparently there are 1125 eligible voters not enrolled still in our community.”