Buller Mayor In A Vege Shop

Local government

A former Buller civic leader and greengrocer, known for his fruity language, wants to regain control of Westport to save it from future floods

He may be an octogenarian, but Westport’s Pat O’Dea may be the only New Zealand mayoral candidate with current evidence of physical fitness.

At 84, O’Dea has another crack in the job he lost when Jamie Cleine took over from Buller in a landslide in 2019. He is considered the oldest mayoral candidate standing in the local elections.

O’Dea put his name on the hat out of frustration with how his successors have succeeded – or in his eyes failed – the greatest threat to Westport’s survival: the Buller River.

“I thought if I tried this again, I’d better get a good doctor. So I went and had a full check up and it worked out fine,” he says.

Just to be sure, he went back a little later for a second medical examination.

“That was all clear too, so I’m ready to go,” he says.

His good health and slim physique may have something to do with his profession.

O’Dea is the owner of an iconic (seaside) old fruit and vegetable shop on Westport’s main road.

He is still there every day, working in the office, surrounded by shelves and crates of fresh and fragrant products.

Hand-drawn signs proclaim value for money, in some cases half of what you would pay in a supermarket.

Other signs warn fiercely: “Don’t fucking squeeze the fruit!”

O’Dea campaigns in the same plain language.

After the disastrous July 2021 flood that evacuated half the city and left many homeless, he ran a full-page ad in the local newspaper to give his opinion on why it happened.

“I was chairman of the port authority for many years and I know how it is designed and how it should work.”

When the city’s Holcim cement plant was in operation, the estuary was constantly dredged to keep the canal clear so cement ships could come and go, O’Dea says.

“We always had cement ships here. When Holcim closed and the ships stopped, they stopped dredging. So it all started building up with millions of tons of gravel from the river – it just kept growing and they didn’t do anything.”

Dredging would have lowered the bottom and the flow of the river would have kept a clear channel to the sea, he believes.

“But they didn’t do it. And Westport flooded. And Westport will flood again unless they do something.”

But no alderman, not even the mayor, came to talk to O’Dea about it, he says.

“The mayor even said in the newspaper that I and others were talking bullshit. So Westport flooded. They took no notice.”

West Gate in the rain. Photo: File

No stopping the Buller

Buller Mayor Jamie Cleine says it wouldn’t have hurt to dredge the canal, but it’s not a panacea. And it wouldn’t have prevented what happened to the city last year.

“In the years that Holcim has been operating, we have never had such a major flood in the river.”

If there had been a flood of that magnitude, dredging for shipping wouldn’t have saved the day, Cleine says.

“Pat has strong opinions about what we should do, and there are all kinds of theories. But he is not the opinion of anyone who advised us, and neither are Niwa scientists who have 20 years of experience with the Buller.”

That said, Cleine says, the government is funding the dredging at a cost of $5 million over the next two years to keep Westport’s harbor channels clear and remove gravel build-up.

He is reasonably confident that he will retain the mayoralty next Saturday.

“Voter turnout looks like it will be in the low 50 percent — not as high as last time,” the mayor said.

Buller voters who have yet to make their choice can deposit their vote at the ballot box at the Westport council office on Saturday afternoon.

Made with support from the Public Interest Journalism Fund