Councillors reject call to resign to validate mandate

INVERCARGILL

A CALL for current councillors to resign from the Invercargill City Council to validate their mandate was rejected yesterday.

Former councillor Wayne Harpur spoke in the public forum and asked councillors to trigger a new byelection, as reported in the Otago Daily Times on Saturday.

Mr Harpur, who will stand for the vacancy at the next byelection, said a Department of

Internal Affairs investigation sparked by recent media coverage highlighted a ‘‘deterioration in governance’’.

‘‘If you are convinced you have the moral high ground — then prove it.

‘‘If you are convinced you have maintained the support of the ratepayer — then prove it.

Alex Crackett defended the council and listed several projects it had achieved, including the CBD block, a successful recycling contract and the Chinese Garden which was now open.

After the meeting, Mr Harpur said he did not believe councillors would support his proposal as their selfinterest overrode any obligation to ratepayers.

During the meeting, after councillors received the mayoral report, Lesley Soper also raised concerns about the attendance of Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt at an election party for National MP Penny Simmond.

She thought it was ‘‘inappropriate’’ Sir Tim had noted it as an official engagement, as the council should hold a neutral position.

Sir Tim argued while he was there in his capacity as mayor — he was really there as ‘‘ambassador for Zero Fees’’.

Cr Soper said she did not care what events he attended in his personal capacity, but said the council was apolitical and it was ‘‘not something appropriate to appear as a mayoral responsibility engagement in an official list.’’

On a separate item Cr Lindsay Abbott raised concerns the council spent only three minutes discussing the approval of $4.7 million to cofund shovelready projects, while spent almost 15 minutes debating whether or not an event should be in the official engagement list.

Councillors voted to withdraw the engagement from the mayor’s report.