Wairoa Mayor Craig Little is asking for an apology from Hawke's Bay Regional Council (HBRC) over severe flooding in the town last week.
More than 400 properties were inundated when a powerful storm brought torrential rain and strong winds last Wednesday.
A week later, the Government launched an urgent independent inquiry into the management of the Wairoa River mouth.
Locals had been complaining the HBRC failed to act in time to dig a channel in the Wairoa River bar where it meets the ocean.
This would have let the rising river empty faster into the sea - and could have prevented 400 properties from flooding.
In a statement on Thursday, Little said no-one from the regional council has apologised to Wairoa over its river mouth management.
"Our community has asked for and needs an apology," he said.
Little quoted HBRC chair Hinewai Ormsby, who said last week: "We can all agree if the mouth could have been opened earlier there would have been far less impact on those communities."
HBRC's decision to dig a channel in the bar "came too late", Little added.
But Ormsby told RNZ last week the HBRC had to consider more than just timing.
"The difficulty and the challenge, which has been long-standing, for the management of the Wairoa mouth opening has been the level in which the riverbed is at versus the swell and tide, and the timings and complexities around getting that right for the sake of human safety... as well as it being successful to actually open it," she said.
"To move one bucket of shingle and have it fill up with two just minutes later will not be a successful opening."
Ormsby added the HBRC would review its processes to see if the decision to open the river bar should've been made sooner.
Wairoa locals told Newshub last week they were furious the HBRC didn't act faster.
A contractor who was called to dig out the bar, Hamish Pryde, said it was ridiculous he wasn't mobilised until it was too late.
"By the time we got the call it was already raining and we basically had a day to respond," Pryde told Newshub.
Meanwhile, Little was happy the Government was undertaking an urgent inquiry - as yellow-stickered homes now number 123.
He said $40 million was the early estimate of recovery costs.
"This includes the reinstatement of flood-impacted homes, the massive impact on council infrastructure from landfill overloading to the effect on three waters infrastructure and parks and reserves."
He said some businesses and farms were hit hard too, not too long after Cyclone Gabrielle devastated the town of 9000 residents in February 2023.
Hundreds of homes were buried in silt and residents were baffled as to why the Wairoa River behaved so differently.
Little said for years, Wairoa District Council has been asking HBRC to listen to its "local knowledge" of the river mouth.
Wairoa wants reassurance HBRC's response will be different in the next major storm, he said.
"The regional council listening to the wrong people has caused catastrophic and unnecessary damage to our township.”
Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell announced last week the Government would contribute $300,000 to the Mayoral Relief for Hastings, Wairoa, and Tairāwhiti after severe flooding in all three areas.
And on Wednesday, Mitchell topped that up with an additional $500,000 for Wairoa's Mayoral Relief Fund.
