Council statement about vaccination policy under traffic light system

Ōpōtiki District Council is urgently working through what the traffic light settings will mean for us as an employer and as a provider of various services to our communities. Our priority is to protect the health and safety of staff and those who use council services.

At this stage, we are still in the process of assessing locations, facilities and individual position requirements.

We also want to be sure that our implementation plan includes well-understood, costed and sustainable processes for checking (and if necessary) enforcing vaccine pass rules.

For that reason, we are operating under the red traffic light rules without the requirement of a vaccine pass from Friday. That means that you will not require a vaccine pass to access council facilities but all other restrictions will apply around capacity numbers, wearing a mask, signing in and sanitising.

Of course, we continue to encourage everyone in the district who can to get a vaccination so that we can move down to orange as soon as possible.

If you are a regular user of Council services, please get vaccinated and get your pass as any changes to our vaccination policy could happen as soon as early 2022 and we want to allow staff and the public sufficient time to meet the Covid-19 protection framework requirements.

If you need help to arrange or print your vaccine pass, staff at Te Tāhuhu o Te Rangi will be running sessions to help with this process over the coming days and weeks.