Long-term Napier city councillor Graeme Taylor has been named Napier’s third deputy mayor in a month.

He was the only nomination at an extraordinary meeting of the council today, nominated by original appointee Sally Crown and seconded by Nigel Simpson, an unsuccessful candidate for the mayoralty at the October 9 election.

Taylor was a prominent representative rugby player and provincial coach with experience in management when he was first elected to the council in 2013.

The meeting was called for 12.45pm on Tuesday and was over 16 minutes later, five months to the day after new Mayor Richard McGrath appointed third-term councillor Crown to the position.

The appointment came after he was declared Napier’s 21st Mayor, after winning a three-way election in which two-term incumbent Kirsten Wise was the first Napier Mayor in 92 years to be unseated at the vote.

McGrath had also been top-polling candidate in the council’s new Napier Central Ward, after 11 years as a councillor, which began at a by-election in 2014.

But the appointment of Crown as his mayoral deputy lasted less than 100 days, before he called for her resignation, and then dismissed her when she refused.

Having appointed new councillor Roger Brownlie, the mayor agreed last week to turn his back on the power to make the appointment and put the job to the vote at an extraordinary council meeting.

The formal process necessitated Brownlie’s resignation, before nominations could be made.

Crown said last week she would not seek election to the position.

Former councillor Maxine Boag, who had 18 years at the table before standing down last year, said that when she first joined the council in 2007 it was in the Standing Orders that a mayor’s recommendation for deputy mayor would be put to the inaugural meeting of the incoming council.

The mayor at the time was Barbara Arnott who recommended Kathy Furlong as deputy, and Boag said: “I don’t recall there being any dissension.”

The power for the mayor to make the appointment followed changes to the Local Government Act, which came into effect at the 2013 elections.

Timeline:

October 9: Local elections with three candidates for the Napier City Council mayoralty - Richard McGrath (sitting councillor), Nigel Simpson (sitting councillor), Kirsten Wise (sitting Mayor).

October 16: Mayoral election result declared - Richard McGrath (sitting councillor) 10,185 (elected); Kirsten Wise 6,763; Nigel Simpson 3,989.

October 17: Richard McGrath announces appointment of Cr Sally Crown as Deputy Mayor.

October 30: Inaugural meeting of new council.

February 23: The Mayor calls for the resignation of Sally Crown as Deputy Mayor, she refuses and is dismissed from the position.

February 27: The Mayor appoints first-term councillor Roger Brownlie as Deputy Mayor.

March 10: After a private meeting with councillors, the Mayor chose not to use his authority to appoint a Mayor of his choosing, and to call for nominations and a vote at an extraordinary meeting of the council.

March 17: Graeme Taylor appointed Deputy Mayor.

Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter based in Napier, where he has worked as a journalist for 38 years, covering events and issues throughout the region.