Last week Gill Booth, who was elected to the Teviot Valley Community Board last year, delivered a leaflet to mailboxes in the Roxburgh and the wider Teviot district. The leaflet said there would be four delivered, three with "important need-to-know information" and the fourth would be a survey.
The first leaflet involved local government and mentioned Three Waters, proposed local body reform and the Local Government Funding Agency. Ms Booth claimed the agency permitted the "unauthorised use of your private property as collateral against council debt".
This week the second flyer mentioned the United Nations 2030 Agenda, council transparency as well as Three Waters and the LGNZ again.
Ms Booth has ties to controversial group Voices for Freedom and has shared disinformation about the United Nations and often appeared as a VFF guest speaker.
Mayor Tim Cadogan, Teviot Community Board chairman Norm Dally and board member and Teviot councillor Sally Feinerman have published a joint statement in a Teviot newsletter rejecting Ms Booth’s claims.
Mr Dalley said, when contacted yesterday, all members had all had phone calls about the flyers.
"We are all disappointed in her position ... We knew it was coming and I thought Gill might have disassociated herself from the board but she hasn’t."
He could not walk up the street in Roxburgh without someone stopping him to talk about the issue, he said.
The board was not the only local body organisation in the country in this position as those elected under the VFF banner had said their intention was to disrupt council business until it was ungovernable, he said.
While it was disappointing that the community was being misled — for example there was no way the council could possibly take private property as collateral for its borrowing — it would not distract the board and the council from its business.
"Our board is very focused on being progressive and responding to our community needs and not responding to issues like this."
