The mayoral race has begun in Rotorua with Steve Chadwick confirming she will stand for a third term in this year's local body elections.

If successful, this will complete a quartet of mayors who have won and completed at least three terms in office since town and rural authorities combined in 1980. The first mayor John Keaney lasted four terms.

Only one mayor, Kevin Winters, was defeated at the polls, in 2013, losing to Chadwick.

Chadwick, a Cabinet Minister in the Helen Clark years, has been a popular mayor, though her majority was reduced in 2016 with a swell of support for academic Reynold Macpherson. She secured 8990 votes to Macpherson's 6127.

Still smarting over the loss, Macpherson, who leads ginger group Rotorua Residents District and Ratepayers Association claims Chadwick launched her campaign on December 5 last year.

On that evening, the council hosted a regular Business After 5 (BA5) evening, at which Chadwick sashayed council successes, drawing praise from business leader groups who attended.

But nowhere was it stated her talk was a campaign launch. Nor has she said it was.

Chadwick told SunLive she was 'buoyed by the support of people who are loving most of what we are doing to lift Rotorua”.

She says in makes sense to complete the innovative programme of 'Big Moves”.

'They must be done and the partnership investment makes them possible and well within our debt profile. I see the optimism as an investment in our future and belief in ourselves.”

She says she will launch the next platform in March and 'it is most certainly now our time to shine”.

At the December 5 evening, Chadwick said Rotorua's projected growth was well ahead of the gloomy predictions of a survey. Current projectons stood at 72,500 – a marked per centage increase on the last 20 years in which the annual growth figures stood unwaveringly at around 0.5 per cent.

On the RDRR's Facebook site currently, Macpherson has chided the local newspaper which turned a letter he presented – but which was not published – into a news story, a not uncommon practice in the news game incidentally.

But he offers one insight. Rob Kent, who said he had not yet decided whether he would stand as mayor, now lives in Waipukarau, and was unlikely, in Macpherson's view, to stand in Rotorua.

Kent garnered popular support with 3328 votes when he stood for the 2016 mayoralty, leading to claims of vote-splitting by the Macpherson faction. A fourth candidate Mark Gould snatched 1763 votes, which led to post- election caterwauling by Macpherson.

In the present term, Macpherson says Kent has been 'fully funded since to qualify in order to operate a business as an independent RMA commissioner. 'He is therefore most unlikely to stand.”

Kent qualified for the role in the current term.

Previously a harsh Chadwick critic, Kent was in one instance quoted as praising her in the current term.

In a plea to bolster RDRR membership, Macpherson points to what he sees as key election issues: 'Debt, frenetic projects, putting wastewater into the lake, Lakefront, the museum, and the civic centre were noted”.

He added, 'The list, however, could include the waste, losing one third of the library to private health organisations, renaming public entities, co-governance, cancelling the Eastern Arterial [route], City Focus, the CBD, the cycleway, the Hemo sculpture, and Mudtopia”.

RDRR plans to makes its mayoral candidate choice in March.

It is already represented on the Rotorua Lakes Council by Raj Kumar and Peter Bentley.

Having under legal threat withdrawn allegations of defamation of council executive staff employees and withdrawing on a technical matter an attempted challenge to last term's results, the association could even look at replacing Macpherson as their preferred candidate with either councillor. And in the world of never say never, is it possible the group's chairwoman Glenys Searancke, a seasoned councillor for decades, could be tempted back into the public domain.

Macpherson's fulminations and in recent days whinges about the media refusing to publish a letter – and he has had a virtual untrammelled run over the years – may have eroded his group's confidence in him.

The association says it will start its selection process for the mayoral and councillor aspirants soon.

Other 2013 candidates, Gould and John Rakei-Clark, who stood as mayor three years ago were also undecided. Frances Louis and Rangi Marie Kingi-Bosma, as far back in the field as a rocking horse in the Melbourne Cup in 2016, have confirmed they will stand again. Kingi-Bosma intends to stand for the Tauranga mayoralty.