The message that got Feyen blacklisted
"I look forward to meeting more geniuses along the way with all the other matters of infrastructure that need looking at... "Michael Feyen, in an email to all staff.
An email where council staff were sarcastically referred to as geniuses and accused of taking too much credit for a water upgrade, was the spark that set alight Horowhenua District Council’s snooping controversy.
Former mayor Brendan Duffy has released the email that thencouncillor Michael Feyen sent to all staff where he criticised the work of a staff member and took aim at chief executive David Clapperton for ‘‘grandstanding’’.
Duffy instigated the expansion of an email-interceptions ‘‘blacklist’’ system in 2015 so that Feyen and councillor Ross Campbell’s emails to staff were screened.
The practice turned into a public scandal this year when it was revealed Clapperton also intercepted emails that were not relevant to staff, including some between councillors and Horowhenua residents.
Duffy said singling out a staff member for criticism in an email to all staff was unacceptable and communication got so bad that he needed to intervene. Duffy was only responsible for blocking Feyen and Campbell’s emails, he said.
‘‘It seems to me that Campbell and Feyen, from the day they got elected, have been determined to bring this council to its knees.’’
Feyen went on to defeat Duffy in the mayoralty contest last year.
Feyen’s email stemmed from an argument about Tokomaru’s water quality and he now says he did not intend to send it to all staff. ‘‘That was a complete accident.’’ In the email, he said he was unhappy that Campbell and Horowhenua residents Christine and Arthur Toms were not recognised for their contribution to improving Tokomaru’s water quality.
‘‘If it was not for the work of the Tomses and Cr Campbell, in particular, we would still be waiting for 20 years,’’ Feyen said in the email.
Feyen wrote that Clapperton’s comments to media about Tokomaru’s water upgrade were misleading and ‘‘nothing more than grandstanding [by] a number of people who did not do much at all, until pressure was applied by the public and some councillors’’.
Feyen also criticised the use of the word ‘‘genius’’ to describe a council manager who worked on the project.
He said it was sad a council manager could be called a genius when others, who equally contributed, were not given due recognition.
‘‘I look forward to meeting more geniuses along the way with all the other matters of infrastructure that need looking at. The safety and structural integrity of the [council] building is just one area that comes to mind,’’ Feyen wrote.
He has frequently questioned the safety of the building.
Now the mayor, Feyen said his criticism of Clapperton and ‘‘people who did not do much at all’’ was the harshest sentence he wrote, and it wasn’t even that harsh. Feyen would not say which people he was referring to.
He said his emails were not offensive and he was excluded from meetings unjustifiably, in addition to having his emails intercepted. ‘‘It was an excuse to shut me down by the mayor and the CE.’’
Duffy said it was media that referred to the council manager as a genius, not staff, and Feyen was not excluded from any meetings that all councillors had a right to attend.
Campbell’s emails were blocked on the same day as Feyen’s, as Duffy said he could not separate the pair in their endeavours to bring the council down.
One of the emails Campbell and Feyen sent included more than 100 questions relating to staffing, the landfill, water quality and council building queries, Duffy said.
Questions such as why the landfill was not regarded as a core council asset were presumptuous, as the council did regard it as a core asset, and they unnecessarily took up council time, Duffy said.