Legal advice costs
Joe made this Official Information request to Hutt City Council
The request was successful.
From: Joe
Dear Hutt City Council,
I request all information about Mayor Wallace seeking legal advice as indicated in this news article: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politic....
In particular I'd like to know if Mr Wallace sought legal advice, the firm he sought that advice from, what that advice was, and the cost to ratepayers.
Yours faithfully,
Joe
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From: Bradley Cato
Hutt City Council
Hi Joe
I refer to your information request below.
You have linked a newspaper article from 1 August 2017 and I assume you are seeking information on this part of it:
"Josh Briggs, however, raised a procedural motion that threw the meeting into chaos, with Wallace seeking legal advice after he was told he had not followed the appropriate procedure."
This advice was sought from the then General Manager of Governance and Regulatory, an employee of Council and a practising lawyer. So there was no external advice sought and no additional cost associated with it.
The Mayor was trying to have a resolution passed that stopped meals being provided to councillors before Council meetings. Cr Briggs raised a point of order, as a councillor had already put that motion to Council recently and it had been defeated. There is a rule in the Standing Orders that states a similar motion to one recently defeated cannot be put before Council again, within a certain timeframe. The issue took up a bit of time and the Mayor eventually moved on, without the resolution being passed.
Our Council meetings are live streamed and then saved so you can watch the meeting here, if you like: https://livestream.com/huttcitycouncil
The catering issue has since been resolved, with councillors now paying for their meals.
Regards
Brad
Bradley Cato
General Counsel
Hutt City Council, 30 Laings Road, Private Bag 31912, Lower Hutt 5040, New Zealand
T 04 570 6880, M 027 542 8175, W www.huttcity.govt.nz, F www.facebook.com/huttcitycouncil
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Mr Rodgers left an annotation ()
I suspect this won't go too far. The requester is asking for a copy of legal advice and the OIA allows for information to be withheld to "maintain legal professional privilege".
Link to this