Lee Vandervis

Lee Vandervis (born 1955) is a local-body politician who was first elected to the Dunedin City Council in the 2004 local elections.

Lee Vandervis was born in 1955 in Balclutha.

He is the second son of Dutch immigrant parents.

Vandervis received a BA in Philosophy from the University of Otago, and has worked as a music technician.

In the mid 1970s he went to the United Kingdom and worked as an acoustic engineer for Midas Audio.

In 1981, Vandervis returned to Dunedin and set up Vandervision Lighting Audio and Video in the early 1980s.

At the 1984 New Zealand general election Vandervis stood for Bob Jones' New Zealand Party in the Dunedin North electorate.

He polled in third place.

Vandervis has run for mayor in 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 and 2022; finishing second in 2007 and 2019.

Vandervis failed to win mayor again in 2022, but he was re-elected to the Council.

In 2004 Vandervis successfully stood for the Dunedin City as a Council councillor and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor coming third with 9.1% of the vote.

In the 2007 election he stood on a platform opposing then proposed replacement stadium for Carisbrook.

He was defeated both as a councillor (by a margin of four votes after the counting of the special votes), as well as a mayoral candidate.

He came second after the incumbent, Peter Chin, but only gained 17% of the votes.

During the 2010 election campaign one of his volunteers installing an election hoarding pierced an 11 kV cable near Mosgiel causing a power outage to 747 consumers.

The site had been designated for hoarding by the Council, but no mention of the presence of the cable had been made; the volunteer was unharmed.

Vandervis was again third in the Mayoral race with 15.2% of the vote.

He was re-elected as a Councillor.

Lee Vandervis stood for re-election in the October 2013 local election as a Dunedin City Councillor; he also contested the Dunedin mayoralty for the fourth time.

He was elected as to Council and placed third for the mayoralty.

The Mayor, Dave Cull, did not appoint Vandervis to any committees, commenting that he had no confidence he could contribute constructively, nor maintain any of the relationships needed to do the work effectively.

On 16 March 2015, Lee Vandervis was subject to a code of conduct hearing dealing with three complaints against him for his alleged bullying, aggressive, and misleading behaviour.

Vandervis has defended his actions.

The city councillor had been involved in an argument with the Dunedin City Council's chief executive Dr Sue Bidrose and had criticised the council and the local police's investigation of the illegal sale of 150 the Council's Cityfleet vehicles to local residents.

On 1 May 2015, Vandervis was temporarily stripped of his voting rights after failing to apologise for these actions.

According to the Otago Daily Times journalist Kim Dungey, Vandervis was well known within Dunedin circles for his acrimonious relationship with Mayor Cull and several city councillors; taking issue with the council's alleged misspending of public money, the Cityfleet fraud case, and property speculation by Council's Delta Utility Services.

In addition, Vandervis has also opposed a 3.8% rates increase and has called for the council to cut back on staff numbers and to "be run more like a business."

Vandervis had sued Cull following an exchange in December 2015 in which Vandervis alleged that Cull paid a bribe to secure a council contract in the 1980s.

In October 2016, Vandervis contested the 2016 mayoral and local elections.

Though he was not elected as Mayor, Vandervis was re-elected to the Dunedin City Council as a councillor.

In July 2017, Vandervis settled a defamation lawsuit against Mayor Cull for NZ$50,000 due to legal delays and spiralling costs.

Vandervis served as the Chair of the Dunedin City Council Heritage Fund and the Heritage Buildings Re-use Committee.He resigned from that role on 22 September 2020.

He is also on the Board of the Otago Settlers Museum.

Vandervis states that he is focused on challenging misrepresented projects and bureaucratic waste.

At times he is controversial.

His criticism of Community Board's being a waste of time raised their ire.

He has also had clashes over bus shelters, criticised Council's financial management – especially the $480,000 bailout of the Otago Rugby Union, and faced criticism over his suggestion that Christchurch's earthquake rebuild could be shifted to Dunedin.

Vandervis has suggested that Christchurch's proposed stadium would be a waste of money.

His comments were based on his experience with Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium.

Vandervis supports the rebuild of the Christchurch Cathedral, which was partially destroyed in the earthquakes.