Former North Shore City councillors remembered

Bruce Lilly

Former North Shore City councillor Bruce Lilly took a keen interest in improving beach water quality decades before it became a topic du jour. His efforts to improve wastewater management and the public-transport network were emphasised when his recent death was acknowledged by the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board.

Board member George Wood said Lilly had put his heart and soul into everything he did.

The men made a self-funded study trip to Sydney when Wood was North Shore Mayor and after Lilly had graduated from the East Coast Bays Community Board to be elected to the North Shore City Council, on which he served from 1995 to 2001.

Efforts to convince fellow councillors to support building the Akoranga Bus Station were successful, but residents’ opposition to building another station by Stafford Park stymied the extension of the Northern Busway network to service Northcote Point.

Canterbury-born-and-bred Lilly died on 1 March, aged 85, in an Albany retirement home, having outlived his wife, Margaret. He is survived by children Ruth, Sue, Ross, Andrew and Julie.

Councillors carefully scrutinised the well-written words of North Shore Times editor Ivan Dunn before he moved from reporting to join them around the council table, recalls former North Shore Mayor George Wood.

Dunn died last month, after struggling with dementia. He led the suburban newspaper in its three-issues-a-week heyday. After stepping down in 2004, he was elected to the North Shore City Council for one term.

“He certainly contributed a lot to the North Shore,” said Wood, now a member of the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board, which acknowledged Dunn’s passing at its March monthly meeting. One of Dunn’s interests on council was in how civil defence should be managed, Wood noted.

Born in Hamilton, Dunn began his long reporting career in Tokoroa before joining the Waikato Times and then spending time working overseas. When he and wife Dawn (who predeceased him) returned to New Zealand, the couple made Sunnynook their home, raising four children: Jason, Simon, Gina and Tony.