CHB mayor Alex Walker says she's working on trying to make as much council business as possible open to the public, but there are specific constraints on what business can be conducted in a public forum.
The Central Hawke's Bay District Council does not have the number of committees and sub-committees of the other bigger councils in the region, and its public excluded meetings are incorporated into the same day as the council meetings.
Of its ordinary full council meetings, 25 were held between October 2013 and October 2016 and of those 16 contained public excluded items - that's 64 per cent.
Ms Walker, who is embarking on her first term in office, said public exclusion was about the law regarding people's safety and commercial confidentiality.
This encompassed events directly involving a staff member, a person's safety, or negotiating contracts with commercial property owners and leaseholders.