Hamilton mayor Paula Southgate says she won't apologise for discussing topics of high public interest behind closed doors due to the legal and commercial sensitivities around them.
Hamilton City Council will today discuss 13 public excluded items including plans to drop the speed limit on busy commuter road Wairere Drive, plans for the new pool at Rototuna Village, purchasing land for the Peacocke Northern Sports Park and a proposal from the Hamilton Christian School.
There are also a number of public excluded minutes and briefing notes - from discussions previously held in secret - to be ratified.
The reasons given on the agenda for the secrecy around most of the high interest items was to enable council to carry out negotiations, while legal privilege was stated for the Wairere Drive discussion.
Southgate acknowledged some of the items such as the pool would be of high public interest, but said the council needed to shut the public out in order to have some commercially sensitive discussions which would otherwise jeopardise potentially good arrangements for the community.