Mayor of Palmerston North

Council elections were annually at first, and biennial since 1914.^[1] The mayor is directly elected using a single transferable vote electoral system, starting with the 2013 election, and with a first past the post system earlier.^[2][3] Elections are held every three years.^[4]

The Borough Council was established on 12 July 1877. At the time, Palmerston North was an isolated village in the midst of a native forest that covered inland Manawatu. The population was approximately 800 people. The first elections on 9 August 1877 returned a council with nine members, including George Snelson as the first mayor. Snelson is regarded as the founding father of Palmerston North.^[5]

On 1 August 1930, Palmerston North was officially gazetted as a city, the 7th settlement in New Zealand to have reached the then-threshold of 20,000 inhabitants. With that, the Borough Council became a city council.^[6]

Jono Naylor was first elected mayor in 2007,^[7] and resigned that position after being elected to the House of Representatives in the 2014 election as a list MP for the National Party.^[8] Grant Smith was elected in his place in 2015,^[9] with the previous deputy mayor Jim Jefferies having been acting mayor in the intervening period.^[10]

There have been 29 holders of the position. The longest-serving was Gus Mansford, who held the post for 16 years. Jill White was the first female mayor in 1998, since followed by Heather Tanguay in 2004.^[11][12]

Three mayors have held non-consecutive terms:

• George Snelson (4 separate periods)
• James Linton^[13]
• William Thomas Wood

Five mayors also served as members of Parliament:^[14]

• William Thomas Wood (1902–1908)
• Jimmy Nash (1918–1935)
• Blair Tennent (1945–1954; 1957–1964)
• Jill White (1993–1998)
• Jono Naylor^[8] (2014–2017)

Of those, Nash and Tennent have fulfilled the role of mayor and member of parliament concurrently:

• Nash for five years (1918–1923)
• Tennent for two years (1957–1959)

The following persons have served as mayor of Palmerston North:^{[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]}