Attending a Meeting
- Attending a Council, Committee or Community Board meeting
You can attend any council, committee or community board meeting unless it is public excluded (see below). You are welcome to come and listen, but you cannot interrupt or make a comment.
Public excluded meetings
A local authority has to provide a good reason if they wish to exclude the public from council or committee meetings - this also includes the media. The reasons for excluding the public are listed in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.
Making a verbal submission to a public consultation or hearing
If you have made a submission to a public consultation or hearing you can request to come along to present your submission at a formal meeting. You will be asked if you want to do this on the submission form. We have put together a handy guide to help you should you wish to speak to your submission in person.
Where our meetings are held
Council and committee meetings are held in the council chambers in our Rosebank Terrace office in Balclutha. The community board meetings are held in our local service centres.
Who will be at the meeting
There will be the chair of the meeting, elected members and council staff. Other members of the public and the media may also be there.
What happens before the meeting
If you have made a submission to a consultation and requested to come along and present, we will contact you and let you know the date, time and venue of the meeting. You will be allocated 10 minutes which includes question and answer time.
Please let us know if you have any special needs or require any audio visual facilities. If you wish to present your submission in Māori or sign language please contact us at least two working days before the meeting. We may need to arrange for an interpreter so the more time you can give us the better.
If you want to bring written material then please make sure that there are enough copies. Council and Committee meetings require 20 copies,
At the meeting
Please choose a seat in the public seating area. In our Council Chamber this is to the left of the door you come in through. When it is your turn to speak the chair will introduce you to the meeting and invite you up to the table. Any equipment you have prearranged to use will be available to you. When you have finished speaking elected members may ask you a few questions. The questions will be for clarification, no debate will take place.
Once you have spoken you may take a seat back in the public seating area and listen to the rest of the public proceedings or leave the meeting.
After the meeting
The elected members will consider all of the information they receive and use this to help inform their decisions.
