It appears that Mayor Radich has approved the addition of the Palestinian flag Notice of Motion being added to tomorrow’s DCC full Council agenda, and is too busy in China Sister City sight-seeing to respond to my email as below, leaving Deputy Mayor Lucas to deal with the fall-out.

The subsequent dropping of the inflammatory ‘fly the Palestinian flag from Mayor’s balcony and other City buildings’ motion in favour of NZ flag at half-mast helped defuse this waste of local government focus and time.

From: Lee Vandervis lee@vandervision.co.nz

Date: Sunday, 26 November 2023 at 11:30 PM

To: Mayor mayor@dcc.govt.nz, Council 2022-2025 (Elected Members) council.2022-2025@dcc.govt.nz, Sandy Graham Sandy.Graham@dcc.govt.nz, Robert West Robert.West@dcc.govt.nz

Subject: Palestinian flag-raising notice of motion

Dear Mr Mayor,

Re Cr. Laufiso’s Notice of motion part 2 calling for agreement “to the City’s flying of the Palestinian flag on November 29th on the Mayor’s balcony and other city buildings, the UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, as a tangible and visible symbol of support to our local Palestinian community.”

I believe you should refuse this notice of motion as Chairperson of Tuesday’s meeting under Standing Orders Section 26.2:

“(a) is disrespectful …“ [and indeed abhorrent] to a sizeable proportion of our Dunedin community.

and “(b) is not related to the role or functions of the local authority or the meeting concerned;”

The role of the DCC is not to purchase flags to fly from city buildings and the Mayor’s balcony to show solidarity for just one side of an international conflict.

[I note that Cr. Laufiso is as publicly avowed communist who, if this transgression of Standing Orders is allowed, would then also be able to call for the flying of the Russian flag from your balcony and city buildings in solidarity with the military invaders of Ukraine.]

and “(e) fails to satisfy sufficient information as to satisfy the decision-making provisions of s.77-82 LGA 2002;

Cr. Laufiso’s notice of motion fails to provide any information, leave alone sufficient information to satisfy any elected representatives’ decision to show solidarity with just one side of the Israel/Palestinian/Hamas conflict.

Your powers as Chairperson of this meeting are sufficient on any of the counts (a), (b), and (e) of DCC Standing Orders above to simply refuse the entire notice of motion in my view, and I intend to propose that this be done upon the confirmation of the agenda, if you do not use your Chairperson’s authority to refuse the notice of motion prior to Tuesday’s meeting.

I believe that in this way we can maintain an orderly and relevant meeting without having to consider a disrespectful ‘solidarity’ motion with one particular side of an international conflict that lacks sufficient information, and is outside of our functions as a NZ local government Council.

Kind regards,

Cr. Lee Vandervis