MAYOR UNDER SIEGE
Secret crisis meeting over leader’s future Bitter council split over gay flag issue
SURF Coast Shire Mayor David Bell’s future is up in the air, with councillors to meet behind closed doors for emergency talks today.
Sources have told the Addy that infighting among councillors will potentially lead to mediation or even see Cr Bell resign.
SURF Coast Shire Mayor David Bell’s future is up in the air, as councillors meet for emergency talks today.
Prolonged infighting among councillors will potentially lead to a council-wide mediation or even see Cr Bell resign from his post, sources have revealed.
The Surf Coast council will hold a confidential special meeting regarding a “council governance matter” this morning.
The meeting is understood to have been called for by the mayor.
Council sources claim Cr Bell — elected as mayor late last year — may step down during the meeting due to stress-related health concerns, sparked by ongoing spot fires in the organisation.
The meeting may also be used to call for council-wide mediation to patch up broken and brittle relationships, damaged by differing opinions on the flying of a rainbow flag outside shire headquarters to support same sex-marriage.
Cr Bell told the Geelong Ad- vertiser he was not prepared to discuss the meeting. But he did confirm that findings of the meeting were likely to be made public at a later date.
Surf Coast Shire’s governance and infrastructure general manager Anne Howard yesterday said council “cannot” comment on what is going to be discussed at today’s meeting.
“Council will consider this matter at a meeting that is to be closed to the public because the discussion will relate to personnel matters.”
The councillor infighting is understood to have been caused by a 2017 decision to fly a rainbow flag outside shire offices in support of same-sex marriage.
In April the council voted to fly the flag until the legalisation of same-sex marriage, but the decision was reversed after another vote in May.
In June a compromise was found, with council spending about $6000 on new flagpoles, one of which would fly the rainbow flag indefinitely in support of same-sex marriage.
At the time, councillor Heather Wellington said the flag debate had “caused in- credible harm to relationships within the community and within council”.
Earlier this month the flag feud took a political turn, with then-mayor Brian McKiterick, who is also a local police officer, revealing his superior officers had told him to back away from his opposition to flying the flag — because he believed it wasn’t council business.
Cr McKiterick’s revelations followed reports that western region Superintendent Craig Gillard was asked to speak to the policeman about his views on the flag.
Supt Gillard — who is on leave after a dispute with Assistant Commissioner Tess Walsh — was being pressured to pull Cr McKiterick into line over his opposition to flying the flag outside council’s offices, the Geelong Advertiser has been told.
It is understood the apparent senior police interference in Cr McKiterick’s council duties has been referred to the independent Broad-based Anticorruption Commission (IBAC). IBAC would not confirm or deny if it is investigating the matter.