Cimino Cole, editor

Seventh Generation: Jax, Cimino and Jaryd. Jax, born 23 March 2017, is a seventh-generation New Zealander on the Cimino side, but more than twenty-fifth-generation on his mother’s. image Shannen Te Kani

Founding editor of the Mahurangi Magazine, 2007.

Diverse career includes designing and building Waiwera pools’ firstcirca 1971 comprehensive water treatment system, a series of unique shallow-drive boats and Regal Salmon’s smokehouse in Invercargill.

Instigator of open-ground indigenous plants project, and founding executive member of Mahurangi Action, established as Friends of the Mahurangi, in 1974.

Forty-two years of leadership in successful community-based initiatives including: Car-free Te Muri access; publication of Jade River : A History of the Mahurangi; revival of the Mahurangi Regatta Prize-Giving and Dance; resolution of 45-year public access dispute at Jamieson Bay, instigation of the Mahurangi Coastal Trail, co-instigation of the Mahurangi Farm-Forestry Trail.

Already in 2016 Cimino has experienced an embarrassment of highlights, but the greatest, because the outcome could not be assumed, was the decision by Auckland Council to respect the overwhelming thrust of submissions on Te Muri, and recommend that all but Hungry Creek Road approaches of the regional park remain private-vehicle-free, 29 years after leading the community initiative that saw off plans for road bridge from Mahurangi West across the estuary to the beach, and for the parking for thousands of cars there.

The second 2016 historic highlight is Auckland Council announcing plans to end the discharge of Warkworth’s sewage effluent into the Mahurangi River. This was the issue that precipitated the formation of Mahurangi Action, in 1974. For the next couple of decades Cimino remained the youngest member of the committee, a distinction that became increasingly worrying. But that concern was decisively dispatched with the election of Tessa Berger, first as vice-president, and last year as president, and providing a further two highlights this year, when she co-presented the Mahurangi Regatta prize giving, and then, on 22 July, announced her candidacy for the Rodney Local Board.

In order to provide maximum support for Tessa Berger’s campaign, Cimino commissioned a new, smartphone-friendly website for the Mahurangi Magazine, from his daughter Tira Cole webmaster, website architect and builder. Delivery of new site, in addition to its design and building, involved migrating more than 600 articles and 4400 links. The process was seamless, and a highlight in a category all of its own, not least of all for the father–daughter time entailed.

Salvatore Cimino I : Wellington’s first Italian resident. image Te Papa

Playing a supporting role as instigator of, and advisor and subeditor to, Tessa Berger’s successful election campaign, will surely be the crowning highlight of 2016. Tessa’s brilliant campaign was totally her own, and, beginning in the Mahurangi, heralds a schools-based revival of local democracy, and just in time to help shape a five-times bigger Warkworth.

Finally, during the election campaign, and almost exactly a year after Cimino conceived and pitched the idea to Councillor Christine Fletcher, Auckland Council’s parks, recreation and sport committee received and endorsed the community’s 50-year plan for the Auckland Regional Parks network. The document signals a new, smarter approach, including self-funding parks and a perpetual fund for ongoing park acquisitions.

Cimino? Previously Peter. Cimino’s mother was Noeline Adelaide Cole née Cimino 1911–1962. Cimino’s grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all took the name Salvatore Cimino (pronounced Cheemeenoh).

Family Partner Sarah; daughters Tira and Rewa; grandchildren Shane, Jaryd and Madison; great-grandson Jax…

590 Mahurangi West Road
RD 3 Warkworth 0983

+64 27 462 4872