Social media giant Meta removed two popular Central Otago Facebook forums last month, with administrators still unable to reinstate the groups.

Central Otago Ratepayers/Residents Forum and popular group Cromwell Today were removed on the morning of March 20, with admins posting on other community pages informing people of the move.

“The Page's Administrators, with the requisite skills and knowledge, have since then been attempting to understand why the Page was taken down and then get it reinstated,’’ the post said.

“Somewhat ironically, META/Facebook do not provide any direct means of communication with page administrators and leave it to their AI to do their 'talking'.

Meta states it will remove pages and groups that ‘repeatedly violate the Community Standards’’. 

A new Central Otago Ratepayers/Residents Forum Facebook group has since been created, however the founder has stood back from his administration role to let others lead.

Cromwell based Bill Sanders started the first group in February.

He is also administrator on several other Cromwell community Facebook pages, helping young people find jobs and accommodation, and selling their wares.

Some of the pages have up to 12,000 followers but the residents and ratepayers forum was struggling to get more than 500, and that was disappointing, he said.

He had intended to grow the page to 10,000 people and to have residents from all over Central Otago being able to share their views on a range of council issues.

“The aim of the page is we’re trying to engage with council on another level.”

A public meeting in Cromwell this week on the Long Term Plan also struggled to get the numbers - Bill said there would be lucky to be more than 30 there.

He can not work out why, when it was election year and with continuing rates increases, more people were not showing an interest in getting involved or at least showing up to voice their concerns.

“I made a decision that I’m better off spending more time with my wife and family. The page was taking up a lot of time and energy.”

Admitting there was a lot of anger on the residents and ratepayers page, “at the end of the day people are angry at stuff but not angry enough to vent their frustrations publicly.”

The page was now run by Stephen Carruth from Cromwell, Stu Millis from Alexandra and Cam Withington.

Stu Millis of Alexandra, has taken over one of the admin roles on the Central Otago Resident/Ratepayer forum FILE SHOT

Stu said, when contacted, the idea when the page first started was to find someone to stand for mayor and/or council - some fresh blood, “but everyone’s too old, so now we’re just the group that complains,” he said.

The group was also currently running a petition to have the council reconsider joining the regional deal with Queenstown Lakes District Council.

Read more: Central Otago District Council to reconsider joining the region deal?

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