Given the labyrinthine intricacies of a council's financial operations, partly obscured too in this case by an organisational review that suggests some dysfunction, it's forgivable if they found the nuts and bolts confusing and really needed to do more homework before raising a challenge.
But the council itself is at fault for not training them better. Less than a quarter of the "new councillor" training budget has been spent, one year into the three-year term; so is it any wonder if the quartet's complaints did not follow proper process?
And this in one of the few current councils still small enough and community-oriented enough to continue to run an "open door" policy, where councillors have reasonably ready access to staff to discuss whatever they wish.
Now, pro-amalgamationists will say this demonstrates a need for higher-calibre councillors, which (they presume) smaller councils covering larger areas will naturally provide, on the "cream to the top" theory.
But apart from this denying the vagaries of charisma and populist campaigning, there are always such risks with newly-elected members, no matter their background: with a mountain of local government regulation to become familiar with, plus the peculiarities of council processes, no one gets fully up to speed in less than half a term. Even properly inducted and well trained.
And the fewer members you have, potentially the higher risk (with electoral turnover) that you get a majority with few clues, trying to handle (if it's a regional body) a billion-dollar business.
At least in Wairoa they're banging round a small table in full sight, arguing local issues they all know first hand. So normally blunders can be headed off or, at worst, worked through without lasting enmity. Something is seriously amiss if that's not the case.
Generally, council bureaucracies have become increasingly corporate in style and nature, meaning doors that were open a decade back are now firmly shut to all except mayors and committee chairs. In essence, the real business of a council now takes place entirely beyond the view of elected officials, and their input into management processes is minimal.
Even in Wairoa you can see this trend in action: new CEO Fergus Power was rightly affronted at the actions of the rogue councillors, but he too went beyond the envelope by stating baldly - and publicly - that they had committed "various unlawful and improper acts".
No court has said so, Fergus; that's the corporate rule talking.
Which only sparks worse division. Scale that up, and you get Auckland. No, thanks.
Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.
