Openly-lesbian candidate for mayor of Kapiti Coast, Jenny Rowan, says she's passionate about politics, helping the local community, and addressing climate change.
Rowan is one of seven mayoral candidates in the in the north-west corner of the Wellington region, where current mayor Alan Milne is retiring.
As a Commissioner in the Environment Court for the past 16 years, Rowan has travelled around New Zealand overseeing a range of cases including airport sites, landfills, towns, wind farms and marine farms and the building of subdivisions and marinas. "Climate change is real," she says. "We can not continue to develop subdivisions that are car-dependent and isolated from services - it is just not sustainable. More creative ideas and planning must be incorporated in all developments."
Rowan comes from a fourth generation farming family in Taranaki. She is a qualified mediator and negotiator, a Justice of the Peace and was awarded the Queen's Service Order in 1991.