'Ruling the Roost': How a council staffer created her own private fiefdom.
- Grant McLachlan - Column
- May 31
- 18 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Imagine the job description:
“You live at the best location in town. You don’t pay rates, you get a car, phone, laptop, internet, your expenses covered, you can work from home, you are anonymous, you aren’t accountable, you have a network who will protect you at all costs regardless, and you rule by decree.”
Auckland Council won’t admit it but that is exactly what Megan Young does for a living. She’s been doing it since 2016 and her regulatory reach is the fastest expanding in the country's largest government organisation.
I’ve accused Megan Young of being complicit in eco-terrorism. I’ve accused her of eco-fascism. With each exposé, she’s hidden behind council censorship, empowered her colleagues, entrenched, and expanded her influence in what can only be described as eco-feudalism.
The escalation was gradual and co-ordinated. The pattern fit the template of other rorts throughout Rodney’s history. I even wrote an 800-page book documenting it, called Unleashed.
Private fiefdoms
The term “private fiefdom” has been used repeatedly throughout the Rodney area’s history to describe council officials and wealthy vested interests. The area is fragmented by the highest proportion of unsealed roads in Auckland, poorly maintained infrastructure, and an indifference to transparency, making it the most dysfunctional and corrupt region in the country.
Resulting in jaw-dropping inequality, the area makes the news for houses being allowed in flood plains, houses destroyed by slips, roads closed by slips, fatal car crashes, leaking raw sewage closing fisheries, and record house prices.
There is a certain irony that people like Ross Meurant and Sir Robert Muldoon would claim that a Rodney town clerk of 32 years, Brian Sharplin, had been running his own private fiefdom. When Rodney tried to be excluded from the Auckland ‘Super City’, National MP Tau Henare used the term ‘fiefdom’ five times to describe the general attitude of council staff and their vested interests. He concluded:
“It is hard not to read the bill. There is so much rubbish in it, one laughs when reading it. It is a bit like a cartoon. It has been put together by people who want to protect their own jobs. That is all it is.”
New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 21 July 2010.
Seven years after Rodney was absorbed into Auckland Council, it was discovered that council managers had been running a racket, resulting in the biggest corruption prosecution in New Zealand’s history. The racket was structured in such a way that ratepayers effectively paid to have council staff bribed to favour certain roading contractors.
The racket was so widespread in Auckland Council that the Serious Fraud Office didn’t have the resources to investigate or prosecute everyone involved. Instead, the council was left to clean shop. It didn’t. Instead, the corrupt culture got worse.
The prime spot
Head to Muriwai from Waimauka along Muriwai Road and you discover that the road network is like a loop road. Clockwise, the first turnoff on Taiapa Road heads to the home of current Act party candidate and chair of the Rodney Local Board, Brent Bailey.
The next turnoff towards the beach along Motutara Road, you pass the fire station where former Act candidate and previous chair of the Rodney Local Board Phelan Pirrie was fire chief for many years.
Nearby is the Muriwai Surf Club where former Act party president and convicted sex offender Tim Jago was president for decades.
Passing rows of million-dollar properties, hidden from the road is the closest house to the beach.
It is a prime spot. Just across the road is the now closed café. Also nearby are the public facilities, such as playgrounds.
Looking through the website homes.co.nz, there isn’t a value on the expansive and fenced off grounds of the property on the corner of Motutara Road and Jack Butt Lane. That’s because it is council owned and part of the Muriwai Regional Park. That is where Megan Young has lived for years.
Invisible
According to her Linkedin profile, Megan Young has been the Park Manager since November 2016. But, according to her emails, she is the ‘Senior Conservation Advisor.’
If you look through the council website and other news sites, there is no mention of who fronts the Muriwai Regional Park. The last mention of a ranger was Joe Rangihuna from five years ago. The latest mention of a regional parks manager was Scott De Silva. De Silva also fronted this story about the temporary closure of the automated gates to the Muriwai Regional Park, which were located immediately outside where Megan Young lived.
Strangely, whenever the media need someone to front a news story about Muriwai Regional Park, Phelan Pirrie or Brent Bailey were available for comment.
Megan Young prefers that others front her agenda, steal the limelight, and claim the credit. As this article demonstrates, she even led others to believe that it was their idea all along.
Vested interests
Local Boards are tasked with deciding where, when, and how dogs can access public spaces, such as parks, reserves, and beaches. They are meant to follow a vigorous and public process.
The Rodney District and Rodney Ward, however, have struggled to grasp the basic concept of transparency. In 1999, Rodney District Council was sacked and the governing body of a mayor and councillors was replaced by one commissioner, who effectively ruled by decree.
With no elected members, ratepayers’ associations lobbied council staff. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, I did say my book was 800 pages long, didn’t I? Here’s the evidence.
In a nutshell, Greg Sayers moved to Snells Beach, was lobbied by his neighbours who ran the ratepayers’ association, and the dog access rules were changed at the last minute and without public consultation. Experts from the council, Forest & Bird, and Department of Conservation all agreed that the rules were unnecessary:
Greg Sayers, however, relied on a poorly prepared submission from his neighbour.
The rules were a mess and created segregation of the beach. The boundary was the boatramp directly outside where Greg Sayers lived rent free.
How much of a mess? See for yourself (click to enlarge):
The signage never reflected these complicated rules, which divided a community physically and socially.
When confronted with the mess, Sayers said that the rules would be reviewed in two years. They were reviewed in four.
Ruling by decree
In 2019, the council originally planned tougher restrictions. Following public outrage, the council relaxed the existing rules.
Snells Beach residents were happy with the proposed changes. Then, like they did in 2015, the Rodney Local Board made last minute changes that continued the existing rules segregating the beach at the boatramp. This time, however, Beth Houlbrooke was the chair of the local board.
Months before the local board had made its decision, Megan Young and bird photographer Michele MacKenzie were plotting an overthrow of the local board’s decisions. I dedicate a section of this article, revealing the emails. Those emails revealed that MacKenzie wasn’t happy with the dog access rules and Megan Young found a rarely-used bylaw allowing unelected officials to override rules passed by local boards:
There was a bylaw that had been in place since 2012 and allowed staff to use delegated authority to impose temporary bans in situations where the council needed to act quickly. Megan Young, however, decided to impose a dog ban at Snells Beach days after the local board’s new dog access rules came into force.
Based on their emails, Megan Young predetermined the need for a ban and then looked for evidence to support it, pressured by Michele MacKenzie. Megan Young then found an incomplete and inconclusive 1995 Forest & Bird study referred to in a 2001 article by Andrea Lord. Megan Young cherry-picked science to suit her agenda, ignoring that Andrea Lord mentioned that in high-use beaches dotterels became habituated:
Megan Young was spurred on by council “Bird Whisperer” Dr Tim Lovegrove. Megan Young originally looked at banning dogs from only 2% of the beach:
In other words, Megan Young was originally only interested in "1 or 2 pair of breeding dotterels" that "wound only be about 2% of available beach area" due to the pressure of Michele MacKenzie. Remember, her only evidence at this stage was Andrea Lord's thesis. To justify the ban, she was looking at other shorebird species to bolster the reasons for the ban. She went to Dr Tim Lovegrove. She then went to Michele MacKenzie:
Michele MacKenzie must have thought that all her Christmases must have come at once. What followed was this rant, which appeared to have been cut and pasted from material from the neighbouring conservation group in Sandspit:
Michele MacKenzie then attached photographic evidence, including:
This photo of a dotterel that was cropped and was missing its metadata -
Outdated photographs of the estuary at the northern-most 100 metres of the beach taken before the habitat had been destroyed by Boathouse Bay -
This photo of pied oystercatchers next to the sewage treatment plant on the other side of Snells Beach:
With this irrelevant and dubious evidence, Megan Young went from originally imposing a temporary ban covering the northern 100 metres of the beach to covering more than 800 metres of the 2000 metre beach.
Neither Megan Young nor Dr Tim Lovegrove (or any council official) had visited Snells Beach to assess any of the evidence before imposing the ban.
It couldn't have been more brazen. And it was all laid out in emails.
The Andrea Lord article mentioned that people should be more than 50 metres away from dotterel nests. Michele MacKenzie, however celebrated the temporary ban by appearing on the front page of the local newspaper next to a nest:
If this didn't demonstrate habituation, what would? Years later, Stuff journalist Jonathan Killick repeated the stunt:
Every year since 2019, Megan Young has copied and pasted the same nonsense in each ‘temporary’ ban, using the previous ban as a precedent for the next.
Following the first ban, the plotting between Michele MacKenzie, Megan Young, and Dr Tim Lovegrove escalated. Read the emails for yourself:
In a nutshell, by May 2020 following the first temporary dog ban, Megan Young and Dr Tim Lovegrove still hadn't visited Snells Beach, yet they were considering the following;
A permanent dog ban and planned to impose temporary bans until then;
To turn the northern end into a bird sanctuary and landscape the Boathouse Bay foreshore; and
Were planning to rope off areas to exclude public access to the beach.
Local board members I have spoken to were led to believe that Megan Young needed the approval of the Rodney Local Board before imposing her bans. Former Rodney Local Board chair and Act party deputy leader Beth Houlbrooke, however, was alerted of this only during the second temporary ban in 2020:
This is bizarre. According to emails, Beth Houlbrooke was in regular contact with Michele MacKenzie and Megan Young, and vice versa. They even chatted about personal stuff. They also attended Restore Rodney East events together:
Yet, Michele MacKenzie and Megan Young went behind Beth's back and undermined her local board work.
Not wanting to be left behind, Beth let Michele MacKenzie's group (redacted) know of her support to impose a permanent ban when she next had the chance:
This raises the question: Considering Beth Houlbrooke was close to Michele MacKenzie and Megan Young, did she bother to alert her fellow local board members of this?
Hoodwinking elected officials
Six years on, the dog access rules were up for review. Megan Young was looking for her next stunt to override the local board.
Initially, she wrote in emails that she would continue to impose her temporary bans until the local board bent to her will. Then, this email:
Take a moment to recognise what these two emails represent:
A new manager -
wanted to know if there was any evidence to support the bans,
wanted to know if there were any other beaches with similar rules,
said that he would support Megan regardless of her answer; and
Megan Young responded that she was -
responding to pressure from "frustrated" dotterel minders,
more concerned about being embarrassed by my official information requests,
more concerned with compliance by dogwalkers rather than any conservation improvements,
that she needed more technical expertise to bolster her weak evidence, and
she hoped that the local board making her bans permanent would avoid her from facing any further public scrutiny.
Knowing that she would face a public backlash regardless, the tactic she adopted in the end was to propose extreme and unnecessary measures and then propose last minute changes that she pitched as a “continuation of the status quo.” But it wasn’t the status quo.
Megan Young ran her campaign in two waves:
She proposed removing picnic tables and footpaths so to convert a public reserve into a wildlife sanctuary; and
Then, she proposed banning dogs -
Entirely from the beach north of the boatramp in Snells Beach 24 hours a day and 365 days of the year, and
Proposed similar moves at other beaches in neighbouring local board areas, including Big Manly Beach and Tindalls Beach.
As you can imagine, there was public uproar and a 700-signature petition against the removal of the footpath:
Even though she lived in Muriwai, Megan Young appeared at the meeting by video link like Big Brother from the film 1984:
Police and security guards were in attendance to protect the local board members and staff from an 80-year-old double amputee, Stan Armiger, and his elderly supporters:
Stan Armiger was given five minutes to speak to his submission. Scheduled to present on 'unrelated issues' immediately following his time, pro-bird lobbyists Restore Rodney East and Beth Houlbrooke (wearing her Auckland Transport hat) were given more time to give their presentations.
Megan Young has assured the public that she will come up with another ‘option’, even though the reserve was created and protected under law to maintain public access.
Meanwhile, two thirds of submissions opposed Megan Young’s proposals for the dog access rules.
At the 21 May 2025 local board meeting, she appeared again by video link. Policy advisors Georgia Kane and Nancy Chu (who drove from South Auckland) were recruited to provide technical assistance, just not the type of assistance one would expect. Instead of providing scientific evidence to bolster the weak evidence in the 1995 scientific evidence, they applied political trickery, wearing down the local board members to vote.
After more than a hour, the policy advisors pitched amendments to the Snells Beach that they claimed “maintained the status quo”, which would be “consistent with the rest of Auckland.” Giving the impression that the council staff had relented, the amendments didn’t represent the existing dog access rules passed by the Rodney Local Board in 2019 at all. What they voted for was a continuation of the rules of the temporary bans imposed by Megan Young for the previous six years.
See for yourself:
Mahurangi Matters published the same spin:
When I asked local board members what they had voted for, they all replied that they voted for a continuation of the status quo in order to be consistent with the rest of Auckland.
But Snells Beach has never been consistent with the “rest of Auckland.” It has been the only beach in Auckland with such rules – the result of Megan Young treating the residents of Snells Beach like guinea pigs.
What the local board voted for was not a continuation of what the local board voted for in 2019. Instead, what they voted for was almost identical to what Megan Young had imposed in her 'temporary' bans.
When I brought this to the attention of the local board members, they asked for the minutes of the meeting and a copy of the video that filmed the meeting. Local board staff then posted the minutes online less than an hour before the next local board meeting a week later. The staff now maintain the line that there has been technical issues with the video of the meeting.
Looking through the minutes of the 21 May 2025 meeting, it is quite clear that they do not reflect what local board members believed was discussed or agreed to.
At the next Rodney Local Board meeting on 28 May 2025, the elected members never got the chance to complain about the misconduct of council staff. The council staff were prepared. Waiting for them was “governance and engagement” manager Lou-Ann Ballantyne, who diverted attention by accusing the local board members for being part of the most “dysfunctional local board in Auckland.”
Gee, I wonder where Ballantyne got her evidence from?
The 'Self-fulfilling Stigma' Method
Looking at all the evidence, there is a consistent pattern of behaviour from people with similar personality traits that stands out:
The Rodney Local Board isn’t run by part time elected officials. It is run by female, seasoned, full time, highly paid, faceless autocrats who abuse the council’s code of conduct rules to manipulate elected officials and suppress opposition.
The methods are clearly co-ordinated and designed to entrench their tenure and cover each other's backs. The group gossip amongst themselves and often work themselves into a lather, like a sisterhood.
The main tactic to suppress opposition is the “Self-fulfilling Stigma” method. First, someone usually falsely describes someone in an internal email or computer database entry as unintelligent, illiterate, misogynous, a racist, a liar, a criminal, an online troll, abusive, or violent. Every subsequent interaction with that person is prejudiced. Staff treat them differently, provoking adversarial interactions. Staff then use those interactions to reinforce the stigma.
It’s a vicious cycle. Megan Young and staff would claim victim status and abuse their positions to suppress opposition.
Staff wield real power and can abuse their discretionary spending, employing more people to create self-fulfilling problems.
Michele MacKenzie and Beth Houlbrooke created a false narrative that few people were complying with their inane rules:
There’s a lot to unwrap here:
MacKenzie had been working with the council biodiversity staff to organise a ‘temporary’ dog ban for some time;
Houlbrooke wasn’t aware of these plans until MacKenzie informed her;
Houlbrooke visited the beach after she was informed what MacKenzie was planning;
Houlbrooke visited the beach with the intention of observing non-compliance of a bylaw in an area where there was no protected wildlife;
Houlbrooke’s solution to the non-compliance issue was stricter rules and stricter enforcement; and
Houlbrooke expected more input into any future ‘temporary’ bans.
Effectively, Houlbrooke created a monster and regretted no longer being able to control it. MacKenzie was now feeding that monster.
The most important aspect of this email is that Houlbrooke lied. There weren’t five signs. The solitary sign in that area was an obsolete 2015 version that contradicted even the 2015 rules. I was also rung by a friend who saw Houlbrooke arrive and leave. While they sat at a parkbench watching Houlbrooke, they joked that Houlbrooke looked lost. At no stage did Houlbrooke make any attempt to approach a dog walker.
With this false narrative created in the minds of the council staff, Sue Dodds came up with the idea of employing two extra staff to enforce them. They called them 'compliance wardens.' It didn't go down well:
Wasting ratepayers' money, official information revealed that the wardens didn't find any dog owners failing to comply with the Snells Beach rules. The Rodney Local Board, however, extended the scheme for another year just in case.
When I lodged an official information request asking for the name of the person who dreamed up the idea of the compliance wardens, the only name redacted was Sue Dodds. They, however, forgot to redact her cell phone number or her first name in one email.
For me, the 'Self-fulfilling Stigma' started with this email from Beth Houlbrooke:
I had lodged an official information request and legitimately obtained information that was embarrassing to Beth Houlbrooke, Megan Young, and Michele MacKenzie. But the stigma stuck.
Another council officer, Animal Management Officer Merushe Arts, then led the Snells Beach bird lobby to believe that, if they caught my dog off leash three times, my dog would be destroyed. One of them even admitted this in court! What followed was three attempts to unleash my dog while they thought that I wasn't looing. I, however, caught them in the act and filmed it. Here is the evidence.
At last count, there were 11,558 hits of my name in council databases. From there, I was handled by a contemptuous (and bonkers) relationship manager, Denise Pieters, who gaslights any complaint, regardless of any evidence I might hold.
The stigma got completely out of hand. It was open season on me where people were led to believe that they could act with impunity. What followed was this and this.
It all played out like a game. I became a sport. And it didn't just come at my expense. According to official documents, before the day that I was charged, not a cent of taxpayers or ratepayers money had been spent on their agenda. Since 18 September 2021, over a million dollars of ratepayers and taxpayers money had been wasted, not including the hundreds of hours of public servants' time that had been diverted to spite me and the residents of Snells Beach.
Make no mistake, people abused their connections with the council sisterhood to suppress me. I filmed it. I photographed it. Council and police officials documents reveal it. Court documents state it.
Brazen suppression of evidence
I lodged a detailed and fully-referenced submission that accurately foresaw what Megan Young was up to. I then received a complaint from Relationship Manager Sally Woods, who took issue that I mentioned the names of staff who were mentioned in official council documents and correspondence.
My submission was then edited/censored by council staff without my permission. Every name, including those mentioned in public records, such as the author of the thesis (Andrea Lord) and names quoted by a judge in a court document were redacted. Here are two pages from my submission (click to enlarge):
Anyone reading it would not be able to make any sense of it.
The female staff in “Democracy Services” then summarised my submission in a report to local board members. It failed to correctly state my position or mention any of the points in my submission:
Meanwhile, those submissions in favour of Megan Young’s proposals were provided in full to local board members.
This is silly, spiteful, and unprofessional. But this behaviour has been allowed to continue without any consequences.
As a result of the corrupt conduct of council staff, elected members of the Rodney Local Board are treated like mushrooms: Kept in the dark and fed with crap.
An army of loyal volunteers
Realising that volunteers were central to her consolidation of power, Megan Young and her supporters formulated a regime where ratepayers money could flow through the Rodney Local Board and into the pockets of lobbyists pushing her agenda:
The Restore Rodney East is an umbrella organisation for environmental lobby groups, such as the Snells Shoreline Conservation Community. Despite big fundraising events at Act party benefactor Alan Gibb’s Kaukapakapa farm, almost 80% of the funding for Restore Rodney East comes directly from the Rodney Local Board.
Megan Young’s base started with a phone call from publicity-seeking volunteer, Michele MacKenzie. Then “PR guru” Jacquie Russell formed a more professional-looking but unincorporated Snells Beach conservation group. She organised events that gave the false impression that she had a lot of local support. Instead, the same faces appeared at all Restore Rodney East events.
The Snells Beach group then came under the wing of Forest & Bird, and the ratepayer money flowed their way.
Megan Young has followed the same template for all her pet projects:
Create a problem that didn’t previous exist,
Support it with bogus science and evidence,
Abuse her delegated authority,
Stigmatise and suppress public opposition,
Escalate the problem,
Throw ratepayers' money at it,
Escalate the problem,
Impose harsher regulations, and
Then create another problem.
She has created a loyal following, allowing volunteers to act with impunity. Sparrow eggs (which resemble NZ Dotterel eggs) have been spread across the beach next to the boatramp, fake dog access signage has been erected, un-authorised cat brochures with council branding circulated, existing signs have been vandalised or altered:
Each time that a complaint was lodged, Relationship Manager Denise Pieters or Sally Woods tried to gaslight complainants, despite complainants providing conclusive evidence.
In Snells Beach, it started with dogs, then cats, then rats, then Pukeko. Michele MacKenzie even filmed herself moving nests closer to threats, so she could share footage of predators with the media:
It was like the dotterels were relocated to justify the rules. This was a territorial battle. Soon after a dotterel roamed south of the estuary, a photo would be taken, and the area would be roped off after. People even built dotterel nests next to the boatramp over 600 metres away from the nearest dotterel:
Meanwhile, Megan Young took no notice of the fact that earthworks from inappropriate development had destroyed nesting and roosting areas or the food source of the birds she was giving the impression that she was trying to protect.
Shortly before Megan Young's plans to rip up the footpath and picnic table was revealed to the local board, I lodged an official information request asking for evidence explaining why and when after 2015 their staff changed their mind that Snells Beach was a significant ecological area. They refused, citing that my request was vague and required too much work.
Dumb and dumber
During the first five years of Megan Youngs' 'temporary' dog bans, the so-called 'bird minders' relocated dotterel eggs to the south of the estuary. Not one chick fledged. The eggs were either washed away by storms, attacked by cats that they filmed, or the chicks starved to death due to lack of food.
When the proposed dog access rules were announced, however, the Snells Beach bird minders claimed on their social media pages that five dotterel chicks had fledged. It was like all their hard work and all the dog bans had worked.
But all the photos posted on their website showed the five dotterels in front of Boathouse Bay, north of the estuary. Here they are being tagged, indicating that they had fledged, before they flew away from Snells Beach and reappeared in Omaha and Tawharanui:
In other words, the dog access rules since 2015 wouldn't have made any difference. The damage from multiple storms had eroded the sandbank in front of Boathouse Bay, restoring the high tide nesting and roosting area destroyed when the Boathouse Bay development was built.
It never occurred to the bird minders to relocate dotterel eggs to the north of the estuary to improve their chance of survival. From the start, the best thing that the dotterel minders could have done was leave the dotterels alone.
It is that dumb. I even wrote this article about how stupid they were.
I asked Megan Young's boss, Rachel Kelleher, what factors she measured the success of the Snells Beach conservation scheme. This was her 3 March 2023 response:
In other words, it was all about the number of volunteers and how many animals were vulnerable. Megan Young oversaw an increased number of volunteers who increased the risk that protected wildlife were exposed to.
Involving more people to make matters worse is a theme of Rachel Kelleher's career. Kelleher was responsible for the council's chaotic civil defence response to the 28 January 2023 floods, which Mayor Wayne Brown criticised. Instead of being reprimanded, she was then promoted to the 'Executive Team.' Kelleher is now responsible for not just Environmental Services but also parks, community facilities, animal management, licencing, and planning. Jesus wept.
In conclusion, what has happened over the last decade in Snells Beach was never about conservation. Even council documents state the goal wasn’t about improving the survival rate of dotterels or other shorebirds. It was all about attracting more volunteers to think that they were achieving something. The more volunteers, the more that Megan Young could continue her lifestyle and power to act with impunity.
It all sounds absurd. The problem is that Megan Young’s own emails reveal the truth – a truth that the sisterhood in her fiefdom has tried to hide.
