Whangārei District Council to hold sudden closed-door fluoridation meeting

Whangārei Mayor Vince Cocurullo inside the Whau Valley water treatment plant that supplies the city's drinking water.

Whangārei District Council is holding a sudden closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning about fluoridating its drinking water.

The meeting comes ahead of the Government’s March 28 deadline for the council to fluoridate its drinking water.

The short-notice 9.30am emergency meeting comes after an unusual last-minute Fridaychange. An initial and also unusually unadvertised open council meeting, scheduled with the description fluoride as its purpose at 9am, was canned at the last minute.

About 80,000 Whangārei district residents will have their water fluoridated by March 28 if the council decides to change tack on its stance against doing so at Tuesday’s meeting.

New Zealand’s Local Government Act, which underpins the process of council meetings, requires ordinary meetings to be publicly notified at least two working days ahead of them happening. This did not happen.

Fluoridation has for months drawn the biggest sustained public gallery turnouts since the council moved into its civic centre Te Iwitahi in 2023.

Up to 100 people have attended every public council meeting where fluoridation has been discussed, since Whangārei District Council decided not to fluoridate on November 28.

The council posted the Tuesday meeting change on its Facebook page only and not its website’s normal agendas and meetings page, doing so at about 2.45pm on Friday. The post said the reason for the 9am meeting’s cancellation was that there were no public agenda items for consideration.

It said the 9.30am meeting’s purpose was for the council to consider legally privileged information about the council’s position on drinking water supply fluoridation.

The meeting comes as time runs out for the significant lead-in time required to test newly installed infrastructure and dosing processes ahead of any fluoridation start-up.

Council lawyers have applied to the High Court for a date to hear a council application for “urgent interim relief” so the council can delay its hands-on preparations for full fluoridation by the late March deadline. The council wants the High Court to rule on which evidence about adding the chemical to drinking water is used to justify the government directive to do so.

Politicians face the prospect of jail if the council is successfully charged with flouting the government directive to make this happen by March 28.

Ratepayers face stumping up for $5 million in extra costs from the council refusing to comply.

Tuesday’s closed meeting comes after Whangārei Mayor Vince Cocurullo said he would go to prison over democracy and the council directive.

Whangārei is the only council in New Zealand refusing to fluoridate among 14 nationwide ordered to do so by then-director general of health Sir Ashley Bloomfield in 2022.

The council is to hold the meeting at its Te Iwitahi council chambers in Whangārei’s Rust Avenue.

■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.