Council leader’s neutrality queried
The Nelson City Council boss was expected to ‘‘drive’’ controversial projects such as the Waimea Dam and the Southern Link as part of his job performance, a previously unreleased document shows.
The Nelson Residents Association says the document brings chief executive Pat Dougherty’s neutrality into question and has ‘‘tainted’’ decision-making.
However, the council says the document was a draft released in error, and Dougherty was never bound by the word ‘‘drive’’ but instead had to ‘‘provide key leadership’’ for such projects as part of his key performance indicators (KPIs).
Association member Steve Cross spent a year trying to obtain the chief executive’s performance agreements under the Local Government Official Information Act.
The council initially said it was confidential employment information, but after an appeal to the Ombudsman the council finally released three documents this week.
Among them was an interim performance agreement covering Dougherty’s first six months at the council from December 2017, which said one of his key objectives was to ‘‘engage with, facilitate, and drive key regional projects ie Waimea Dam and Southern Arterial Link’’.
However, Dougherty and Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese said yesterday that the wording was in a draft document that was mistakenly released as the council rushed to meet the Ombudsman’s request to release the information.
‘‘We thought we had a week, and we didn’t, so we had to push this out yesterday evening,’’ Dougherty said.
He said the performance agreement he operated under stated that one of his KPIs was to ‘‘engage with, facilitate and provide key leadership on regional projects ie Waimea Dam and Nelson Southern Link investigation.’’
The only change in the document released to Stuff yesterday was the replacement of the word ‘‘drive’’ with ‘‘provide key leadership’’.
Reese said the wording was changed at a meeting of the chief executive employment committee before Dougherty started.
Cross said he was ‘‘absolutely dumbstruck’’ at the idea that the council had released the wrong document.
‘‘They have gone to extreme lengths not to release it, and only the most incriminating thing has changed, because there would be no problem in the final version.
‘‘They’re in serious trouble if the wording on the original one is correct, because it’s actually incredibly significant. I do not believe it.’’
Cross said that at the time the performance agreement was made, the council had no official policy on the Waimea Dam and had not finished the consultation process on funding $5 million towards it.
If Dougherty was tasked with driving the project, ‘‘this means that the officer’s reports in respect to the consultation have to be considered to be tainted’’, Cross said.
Cross said the councillors on the Chief Executive Employment Committee – at that time Reese, deputy mayor Paul Matheson, and councillors Luke Acland and Bill Dahlberg – ‘‘must now be considered to have a predetermined view when they went to consultation’’.
‘‘The setting of political objectives for the CEO cuts right across the principle of political neutrality by staff and the provision of free, frank, professional advice.’’
However, Dougherty said he suspected that the ‘‘clumsy wording’’ came from him, not from the committee members, though he could not remember. Reese agreed, saying she recognised the document as a draft.