A Kapiti politician has stunned his colleagues by turning up at a council meeting dressed in a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
Paraparaumu-Raumati Community Board deputy chairman Dale Evans walked in to the Kapiti District Council's monthly meeting during public speaking time, dressed in the white outfit with a sign around his neck that said "its wotz under da hood dat counts" -- mimicking the slogan used in a current national hoodie campaign.
He wore the costume as a publicity stunt to draw attention to problems with Kapiti bore water.
But after the meeting, deputy mayor Ann Chapman said it was appalling to use a serious episode of racism in American history as an analogy to the hoodie campaign.
"It was outrageous -- a poorly chosen disguise and disrespectful to what some American black people went through in the deep south," Mrs Chapman told the Dominion Post.
John Haxton, Paraparaumu-Raumati Community Board chairman, said Mr Evans should have brought the water issue up at a community board meeting, rather than resorting to dressing up.
Kapiti Mayor Jenny Rowan agreed. However, Mr Evans "was exercising his democratic right".
