Following is a story about Wellington's September - and my post correcting the information.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/7760901/Coolest-little-capital-warms-up

It seems to be standard journalism these days that they accept hand-outs from agencies and print them without putting much original thought or questioning some of the statements. As you say Nelson and Napier (amongst others) are officially classified as cities. It used to be a "profession" once upon a time. You can hardly say that now, a fair number can't even spell. {Ahhh.... things were not like that in my day... I worked for the ChCh Star when it was a daily for 10 years in the mid '70's).

Both "Stuff" and the printed DomPost had the story, which I should have mentioned here.