Administrators of a community Facebook group are being threatened with a defamation lawsuit after a member of the group criticised the Far North District Council (FNDC) for their approach to Northland's dog pounds.
Former councillor and Far North mayoral candidate Dave Hookway shared his stance on FNDC general manager, Dean Myburgh, via a post to the Kerikeri Notice Board Facebook group.
Hookway's since-deleted post addressed what he believed as incompetence, a waste of ratepayers' money and the public's distrust in Myburgh's ability to do the right thing for dogs in need. He also alleged Myburgh labelled certain dogs as "killers".
Hookway allegedly claimed Myburgh was "overpaid" and should step down from his role.
FNDC says Hookway's statements caused Myburgh anxiety, distress and damaged his reputation. It’s recruited a team of lawyers from firm Brookfields, based on Auckland's Queen St.
Letters sent on behalf of FNDC have since threatened defamation suits against Hookway and the Kerikeri Notice Board Facebook admins.
Brookfields accused the Facebook group admins of allowing a member to post defamatory comments about Myburgh.
The post was taken down - but not by an admin.
"We have 20,000 members and around 10,000 posts per month. This post was removed before I had a chance to look at it... after the letter had been sent to Dave, he removed the post," Grant Kearns, an admin for the community page, told Peter Williams during a MagicTalk interview on Thursday.
"Usually if someone complains about a post to an admin, we'll have a look at it and if we think it's not right, we'll take it down... but we hadn't [heard] anything from anyone until this lawyer's letter arrived by email."
But Hookway has told Newshub that he removed the Facebook post after hearing from a friend that the council had been unhappy with it - 12 days after it was posted. He said his comments weren't focussed only on Myhberg, but on the council's actions.
The conditions of Far North District dog pounds is an ongoing concern, with a number of local newspapers covering the issue in the last year. Kearns says there have been multiple posts on the page from worried locals regarding the pounds and their treatment of animals.
Kearns says Hookway was clearly frustrated by the matter and decided to bring attention to the issue through the popular community group.
"It's been quite stressful for all of us... but also a huge waste of ratepayers' money, we feel, trying to stifle free speech in the area," Kearns says.
Brookfields say they will proceed with the defamation suit unless the Facebook admins upload a retraction and apology to the page - with a deadline of 5pm on Thursday.
However, Brookfields' email states they "reserve the right" to take action against the Facebook admins - even if they do share the apology.
"Until we have legal advice we haven't decided [if we will post the apology]," Kearns says.
"We've made some inquiries but as of yet we haven't found anyone to give us anything concrete... we're still awaiting legal advice."
Hookway doesn't intend to sign an apology.
Peter Williams says the case is "unbelievable" and has called out the council for "bullying".
"[The council should] get on with their job instead of trying to take action against ratepayers," he says.
Kearns says the council's communications manager has been in touch with the admins before over previous posts, but they've never spoken to Myburgh.
The admins have previously removed a post comparing a council member to "a Nazi" at the request of the communications manager.
Kearns will inform Newshub on the admins' decision whether to upload the apology or not.
The FNDC did not respond to MagicTalk's request for comment.
