Otago Daily Times, 30 November 2020

Lawyers have now been called in for the next round of what from the outside looks like a personal campaign by mayor Jim Boult against Christchurch International Airport’s Tarras proposal.

We don’t know if councillors had the chance to okay his initial letter to Christchurch Council, describing CIAL’s actions as predatory and of questionable morality. They should have.  He is representing councillors and residents when he writes such an aggressively toned letter to another council. 

Interestingly, the final paragraph of this story in the print version has been extracted from the online version. We provide it here as it raises a serious question of transparency and whether this is a personal mayoral campaign or representative of full council: “He was also unable to comment as to whether the subsequent advice would be presented to full council.”  

Really? That there might be a question over this is bad enough.  Even worse is what looks awfully like political control of our local media.

LINK to article