“[The anniversary] caught me by surprise.
“I didn’t realise how long I’d been there,” says the Manukau Heights resident.
At Mr Rhodes’ last Botany Community Board meeting earlier this month, the board’s chairwoman Dyann Calverley spoke of how the 70-year-old had shaped the board from its inception.
“We’re going to miss you,” she said. “You’ve been such a huge help and I’m not sure what we’re going to do without you.”
Mr Rhodes started off in council administration in 1988, but quickly moved on to a new role as ward coordinator following the national restructuring of local government in 1989.
“At that stage we were about to amalgamate Papatoetoe and Howick,” he says.
“We had community boards set up and the staff at council thought we were going to have 50 more phone calls a day.”
Taking questions from board members and finding the answers has been at the core of Mr Rhodes’ role as democratic processes coordinator.
“You should know the answers to most things. That’s our job,” he says.
“We give them some advice that they sometimes take.”
While his time at council has been a “pleasure”, working on community boards was never on his agenda.
“A geographer from way back,” he taught social sciences at Otara’s Tangaroa College from the school’s creation in 1976.
“We all drove school buses,” he recalls. “It was a great scam being a school bus driver. I never had to do any of the boring stuff.”
In his retirement Mr Rhodes wants to go travelling with his wife, finish renovating their home and keep an eye on local politics.
“I don’t intend to stand for election, but I will watch with interest on the other side.”
