Public Participation At Meetings
Attending Council meetings
At Council meetings the Mayor and Councillors debate and decide on important issues affecting our District on your behalf.
Council and committee meetings are held in the Council Chambers at our main office, 29 Bowler Avenue, Gore. The Mataura Community Board meets at the Mataura Community Centre in McQueen Ave, Mataura.
You can view our council and committee meeting calendar here. You can also livestream our public meetings, or catch up later on our YouTube channel, GoreDC.
Presentations
Members of the public may make a five minute presentation to the Council or any committee if they have requested permission from the Chair at least seven working days prior to the meeting.
Requests should be emailed to [email protected] and marked for the Chief Executive’s attention. Alternatively, they can be handed in at our main office.
Where an issue is urgent or of major public interest, the Chair may allow a shorter notification period.
Presentations can be made at all Council and committee meetings held in public.
Petitions
A petition is a paper or electronic document addressed to the Council. It asks the Council to act on or address a local or private concern.
Once a petition has been presented to the Council, it becomes a public document. This means all the information, including a person's address and phone number, are publicly available.
Members of the public are welcome to present petitions to the Council or the relevant Committee. If the petition organisers want to speak at the meeting, they can do so for up to five minutes (excluding questions) unless the meeting resolves otherwise.
If necessary, an elected member can read the petition on behalf, but must only read the petition, the statement of parties it comes from and the number of signatures.
Petitions:
- Petitions must contain at least 20 signatures and consist of fewer than 150 words (not including signatories),
- Must be received by the chief executive at least five working days before the meeting at which it will be presented. This requirement may be waived by the chairperson,
- Can not be disrespectful, offensive or include malicious, inaccurate, or misleading statements (see Standing Orders 20.9 on qualified privilege).
- Must be written in English or te reo Māori.
- Must ask for a person’s name, address and signature.
Petitioners planning to present their petition in te reo or sign language should advise the Chief Executive at least two days beforehand to allow translation services to be arranged.
How to prepare a petition
Here are some guidelines on how to prepare your petition.
- Ensure the contact person’s name, address, email address and phone number are provided
- A person must sign a petition themself, unless they are incapacitated. Anyone signing on behalf of a person incapacitated must state this fact beside the signature).
- Signatures must be original (not photocopied, faxed, scanned, pasted or otherwise transferred onto sheets of the petition).
- The Petitioner should ensure the petition is addressed directly to the Gore District Council.
- Each page should contain a statement about the purpose of the petition.
- Each page should have privacy note stating the petition and the details of signatories will be publicly available once the petition has been presented to the Council.
The Council may refuse any petition that:
- Is not in the proper form,
- Is repetitious, disrespectful or uses offensive language or statements made with malice,
- Is similar to an earlier petition that has already been considered by the Council.
- If it is not in the proper form it will be returned to the submitting Petitioner.
