7 April 2020

Media: Local Democracy Reporter

Topic: Council meeting recording

Enquiry

I am following up on some comments a council officer made in the last extraordinary council meeting on Friday.

In the video of the meeting, at time stamp 14:50, the council officer says the video of the previous extraordinary meeting (March 25) was edited as councillors discussed "confidential items".

Taxpayers Union spokesman Jordan Williams, a constitutional lawyer, says doing so was "clearly illegal" and a breach of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act:

The emergency changes which were made by Parliament just before we went to level-4 lockdown still require the whole meeting to be aired - not just want officials what ratepayers to see.

The arrogance of Council officers to decide what can be made public, and what shouldn't be, is disgraceful. The law is clear that the decision for a Council meeting to go into public excluded' is solely one for the councillors, and must be made during the public part of a meeting. That didn't happen here.

For Council officials to breach the law like this, and doctor videos is surely a sackable offence. I've never seen anything like it.

Now is the time for councils to be more, not less, transparent. The District Council would never have got away with this if people were sitting in the public gallery, so it is a shock that they are trying to at a time of emergency. The Council needs to put up the un-doctored version of the video without further delay and reprimand whoever was responsible for this.

Dean Knight, a constitutional lawyer from VUW, says the video was lawful because "the video then had no special legal status".

However, if it had happened the next day - when the amendment made to LGOIMA mandated video recordings as the means by which local authority meetings were made open to the public, then edits like that would have been unlawful without a public exclusion motion.

I invite the council to respond to any of these comments.

I would also like to know:

• Does the council believe it was acting lawfully? Why / why not?
• Was editing the video ethical?
• Can ratepayers and residents have confidence the Rotorua Lakes Council is transparent, accessible and accountable? Why / why not?
• What is RLC's process for ensuring this?
• Why was the video edited, and who determined it?
• Who decided the items edited out were confidential? Can you please give those reasons?
• Has there been any discussion or disciplinary action, within the council about this decision? If so please provide details.
• Why, when asked by the Rotorua Daily Post last week, did the council not say the video was edited to omit "confidential items" as the officer did in the council meeting on Friday?

Subsequent from reporter:

We won't be including commentary from the Taxpayers' Union regarding their claims that the editing of the video was illegal.

It is our responsibility, however, to make sure the council is aware of claims made against them and give it a reasonable opportunity to reply.

You will note also included was the perspective of Dean Knight, who disagreed with the Taxpayers' Union.

We are including this line in the story (Councillor Macpherson being approached because he was the one who originally asked the question in the Friday meeting):

Approached for comment, Councillor Reynold Macpherson referred the Rotorua Daily Post to a Facebook post in which he said the transparency and public accountability of central government, ministries and agencies regarding their responses to Covid-19 provide working examples of what the public in general, and ratepayers in particular, expect of local government.

With that in mind, and with those comments regarding illegality out of the story, please advise if the council wishes to amend its response

Response

From CE Geoff Williams:

There will be times when things don't go as smoothly as we ideally would like, as was the case with the technical issues we experienced using this technology to conduct Council meetings for the first time. To champion this as some sort of conspiracy of wrongdoing and build it up into something it fundamentally is not is extremely disappointing and completely unnecessary, particularly at this time.

Right now, everyone in our organisation is focussed on supporting our community through the most difficult situation it may face. The community is also focussed on getting through this difficult and uncertain time and supporting one another.

So it's incredibly disappointing that, meanwhile, local media is focussed on trying to find some sort of conspiracy that simply does not exist. Your treatment of this matter is, in my view, vexatious.

Subsequent offer to change earlier comment:

Reporter was informed there was no change to comment provided earlier.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Media: Local Democracy Reporter

Topic: Council meeting recording

Enquiry

Enquiry to Mayor:

I was wondering if you could please comment on what you think about council officers editing the footage of the March 25 council meeting.

My questions for you are:

• Do you think council officers were right to edit the footage? Why / why not?
• Do you think ratepayers and residents can have confidence in the council to remain open, transparent, accessible and accountable during Covid-19? Why / why not?

Response

From Rotorua Mayor Steve Chadwick:

My focus is on the recovery plan and what we need to do to move Rotorua forward.