KEY POINTS:
It took four levels of bureaucracy the best part of six hours to get 20 plastic chairs for yesterday's public hearing on Waiheke Island.
What began as a straightforward request turned into a "bizarre" ordeal for Pita Rikys, a local who helped organise the hearing.
"What would you normally do to get some chairs? You go to the Ostend service centre and say, 'Hi Eric, can I get some chairs from the hall?"
Instead of a simple 'help yourself", Eric Putt, a local Auckland City Council officer, said "No" and referred Mr Rikys to the council's headquarters in central Auckland.
Mr Rikys said he spoke to a young man, who said he would to have to speak to his manager and would ring back.
"He rang back and said his manager would have to get authority from another manager."
The next call Mr Rikys received was to tell him he could not borrow the chairs.
After much tooing and froing stressing the importance of the meeting, the council bigwigs in town relented and allowed Mr Rikys to borrow the chairs.
It took the best part of a day, from 8.30am to 2pm.
"It's totally bizarre, isn't it?" Mr Rikys said.
