QLDC chief executive Duncan Fieldsaid in an email yesterday the public would be excluded because the company at the receiving end of complaints was entitled to privacy, legal proceedings were a possibility and compliance issues were being discussed.
Riverbank Rd resident Jo Dippie and others have complained to the council about Mr Field using his discretion to permit the company to import and process gravel, allegedly in breach of resource consent conditions.
They have also complained about the contents of the company's fill.
They want the site closed and Ms Dippie is calling for the council to discuss the matters in public.
Mr Field's response confirms several conditions are being deferred until an Environment Court case is finished.
He also asks Ms Dippie to consider how she would feel in the same situation as Wanaka Landfill Ltd.
"The matter is also one in which I am seeking to have a free and frank discussion with my council over how I will exercise my authority.
I do not believe there will be such a discussion if any of the parties are sitting in the room.
The correct opportunity for you to record how the matter affects you is through the public forum process," Mr Field said in an email to Ms Dippie, copied to the Otago Daily Times.
Wanaka Landfill Ltd director Robert Duncan did not want to comment.
In response to questions about the use of his discretion, Mr Field said he was doing it because a "unique situation" had arisen through "longstanding, common understandings", subsequently found to be incorrect, about the legality of the gravel extraction.
The Environment Court had previously accepted the use of discretion in other gravel extraction cases was reasonable.
Similar but greater problems previously arose in the Shotover Delta, where gravel extractors took several years to get consent.
Those matters had been resolved through co-operation between all parties.
The QLDC was allowing Wanaka Landfill Ltd to continue importing and processing gravel on the basis it was a continuing activity.
Mr Field is reviewing the history of importing gravel at the site after receiving a complaint importing had never occurred there before.
Asked if his approach made a mockery of the resource consent process, Mr Field replied parties who found they were not complying with council rules were not criminals.
Unless there was fraud or deliberate avoidance, the council's approach was to help parties comply, he said.
"I think there are a number of parties who would support council in seeking to mediate solutions rather than spend . . . ratepayers' money to prosecute ...
"this is especially true where, as in this case, the complainants came to the problem rather than it starting up around them, where the activity had been going on for a long time on the basis of a common misunderstanding, and where the activity . . .is of high value to the community."
