‘Relentless’ campaign targets city councillor

A Christchurch city councillor seeking reelection is being targeted in a ‘‘relentless personal attack’’, and he is fed up with it.

Two-term councillor Mike Davidson, who is standing again in the Papanui ward, said offensive notes had been continually attached to his billboards since mid-August.

The typed notes, fixed to his signs with Blu Tack, are always the same.

They are headlined ‘‘Papanui deserves better’’ and go on to say ‘‘personal agendas and selfinterest do not represent this community or constituency’’.

Davidson said he found the signs misleading and offensive, and someone was obviously trying to discredit him.

He had removed about 50 of the notes himself, and said he knew of others who had taken some down as well.

‘‘It’s personal, it’s constant, and it’s draining. I don’t want to play this personal attack game.’’

Davidson said it had got to the point where he’d had enough.

He did not believe that the work he had been doing to create strong communities throughout Papanui, and supporting cycleways and safer streets, had anything to do with self-interest.

They were issues that benefited the entire community, he said.

As chairperson of the council’s transport committee, Davidson has been a staunch supporter of the council’s controversial cycleway programme.

Davidson has just one opponent standing against him in Papanui: Victoria Henstock. She has categorically denied any involvement by either herself or anyone associated with her campaign.

‘‘I have no idea who it is. That is not me, and that is not how I operate. People who know me will know that I do not behave like that.’’

Henstock said that when she first saw the notes on Davidson’s signs, she was shocked because she did not think that type of thing happened in local body campaigns.

She had messaged Davidson to tell him about the note, and offered to take it down herself.

When asked if it could be someone on her campaign team, Henstock said she did not really have one. She had friends who helped her deliver her pamphlets, and her husband was her campaign manager, but she was certain that none of them would behave like that.

‘‘You have to remember that there are people out there, even though they do not know me, do not like Mike Davidson. It does not mean they’re on my team.’’

Voting in the local body elections has already begun, and remains open until midday on October 8. As of 4pm yesterday, 19.58% of eligible voters in Christchurch had voted.