The conundrum came to light during yesterday's West Otago Community Board meeting, when it transpired at least 13 submissions requesting the removal of two groups of trees in the town were misattributed.
A submission claiming to be from a group of named main street businesses requested the Clutha District Council remove ''all trees in garden plots on Main Street'', as ''small children can't be seen by cars''.
Several immature trees of 1m-2m adjoin parking bays and a pedestrian crossing on the road.
However, board chairwoman Barbara Hanna and deputy chairwoman Sue Wink said they had since spoken to eight of the 10 parties concerned, all of whom denied making any submission, and had no known issues with the trees in question.
One of the fake submissions was in the name of Ms Wink's mother, Tapanui Toy Library volunteer Heather Wink, who had been shocked to see her name linked to the request on a council summary provided for the board's consideration.
''She knew nothing about it, and said she would never make any submission for the toy library without the approval of the committee anyway,'' Ms Wink told the meeting.
She noted the submissions were all worded very similarly, and had been emailed ''within seconds'' of each other, as had a second group of three submissions relating to copper beech trees in York St.
Following further discussion, Clutha Mayor Bryan Cadogan said the source of the ''spurious'' submissions would be tracked and ''appropriate action'' taken.
''I'm disgusted somebody would try and manipulate a community-centric democratic consultation process in this way. It has to be taken seriously, as so much of our interaction with the public is through these sorts of processes, and we rely on their honesty and integrity to make good decisions.''
He said council staff would look at ways to ''tighten up'' the online submissions process.
''At present, submissions can be made anonymously, or without authenticating contact details. That's something we obviously need to look at.''
