The Howick Local Board’s deputy chair, Kai Zeng, has spent the past month acting as chair while the board’s chair, Bruce Kendall, was overseas.
Zeng, a first-term member for the Flat Bush subdivision, stepped up in Kendall’s absence and marked the end of the stint by tabling his second member’s report at the board’s June business meeting.
“Thank you to the Chair, members, staff, and the public for your patience and support during this incredible experience as a young elected member,” he wrote on social media.
One of the board’s youngest members, Zeng was elected in 2025 and holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Pennsylvania.
The deputy chair’s role includes standing in for the chair when they are away, and Zeng’s turn came only partway through his first term on the board.
He said he had built his month in the chair around three themes: delivery, accountability, and community connection.
Zeng described the June meeting as “probably one of the most significant meetings since I got elected”.
Chief among its business, he said, was another community grants round, which he framed as “giving ratepayer money back into community events”.
The board also signed off its Local Board Transport Capital Fund projects for 2026 to 2029, the rolling programme that pays for local road, footpath and safety works.
It adopted its 2026/27 work programmes across community, governance, environment and leasing, the annual plans that set what the board delivers and funds through the year.
And it made formal feedback submissions on a run of regional and national matters, he said: the Plan Change 120 housing intensification rules, the Government’s reform of Auckland Transport, Watercare’s significance and engagement policy, and the Government’s Move-on Orders legislation.
A member’s report is a regular update elected members give at business meetings on their activities and priorities; the June report was Zeng’s second, following his first in May.
He has made youth representation and transparency recurring themes of his first term, and pointed followers to the council minutes to read his report and the meeting’s decisions in full.
His month in the chair has now ended, with Kendall resuming the role.
