Footage of last Wednesday’s meetings was pulled by the council that evening and restored on its website on Friday.
"The video of Wednesday’s meeting was taken down temporarily due to potential legal concerns, but is now being made available again," a council spokesman said on Friday.
"We don’t have any further comment."
Wednesday’s meetings had included Cr Jim O’Malley criticising staff for the way government Three Waters "Better Off" money was initially allocated before some was redirected to align more clearly with the new government’s expectations, as well as with what Cr O’Malley said were councillor intentions in the first place.
The council provided no indication to the Otago Daily Times whether this was the incident of concern or if another matter had cropped up.
Cr O’Malley learnt of the video’s removal through a phone call from the ODT.
It was an unusual move — rather than normal practice, he said.
Cr Lee Vandervis chaired the second of the day’s meetings, which was of the finance and council-controlled organisations committee.
"I was given an explanation after the video take-down which the ODT have also been given — there was a potential legal issue that needed to be investigated before the video was made public again in case there was a liability problem," Cr Vandervis said.
The ODT asked councillors what should be inferred about the council’s instincts relating to transparency.
"Council staff instincts regarding transparency appeared to be very sensitive but, given the short time of video take-down needed to consider what might have saved some legal action, probably justifiable," Cr Vandervis said.
Cr O’Malley claimed on Wednesday Better Off funds were initially "misdirected".
Council staff have said previously the original Better Off funding allocation was "deployed within the requirements and specified uses set by the Department of Internal Affairs under the previous government".
Some unspent funds were reallocated after the change of government.
