Stormy scenes at emergency election meeting

As the dust settles on the triennial local government elections, Kaipara is still waiting for a definitive answer to the question: Who will be the next Mayor? Kaipara’s election process was thrown into turmoil last week when retiring Mayor Craig Jepson called an emergency meeting on October 16, just hours before the declaration of the final result, to discuss the “conduct of the election”. At the outset, councillors raised a number of concerns around the need for the meeting, its timing and why the public would be excluded during the main discussion. Councillors Mark Vincent, Eryn Wilson-Colli...