Public forums will stay on the agenda for Whangarei District Council meetings after councillors were spilt on whether to dump the forums in the lead up to the local body elections to prevent them being used for electioneering.
Council boss Mark Simpson proposed ending the public forums ahead of the three-month pre-election period leading up to the October 12 local body elections and councillors voted on the issue at their monthly meeting on Wednesday.
In a report to the meeting, Mr Simpson suggested removing the public forums from the council's standing orders, saying the incoming council can then decide if it wants to reintroduce them. He said the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) has provided commentary around the previous two triennial elections stressing resources administered by councils should not be used for electioneering or to benefit one candidate over another.
Deputy Mayor Phil Halse said it was not fair that Mr Simpson was copping flak for suggesting the forums end, when it was councillors who proposed the idea. "We are pretty united. Because of legislation, every election we have got to take such action. It's an executive decision."
The public forums were introduced by Mayor Morris Cutforth in October 2010 as a way of giving the public a say in council meetings, but they have sometimes been used to criticise the council. It needed a vote of 75 per cent of councillors present to support removing the item from the stranding orders.