Media Release: Waikato District Council, 12 August 2016
Update – Waikato District Council libraries will open tomorrow August 13th as usual
Waikato District Council offices and libraries will remain closed for the rest of today following receipt of a message this morning from a caller threatening to visit a council office with harmful intent. All non-essential staff have been sent home.
Council libraries will open tomorrow (Saturday 13 August) as usual and council offices will re-open on Monday morning.
The Council’s Chief Executive Gavin Ion says, “We notified the police and closed our offices and libraries as a first response and we continue to stay in contact with the police as we manage the situation. We take any threat to our staff seriously and place their safety first.”
He says the Council has notified residents and ratepayers about the council office and library closure on social media and apologises for any inconvenience to the general public.
So it looks like we’ll have a by-election for the Community Board because there only seem to be 5 nominations for 6 places and the “There is no power for the Returning Officer to extend the legal deadline of noon on nomination day” rule has been applied to at least one nomination.
I was wrong there. Now it seems like 7 for 6 places, but the current mystery is that our current councillor’s name has disappeared from the nominations. If that remains so, we might not have elections for Raglan positions.
I wonder if the office closures had something to do with these very odd changes in the listing of candidates?