Councillors walk out in protest
One Nelson city councillor said he was being slandered and three councillors left the chamber as code of conduct proceedings against Councillor Mike Rutledge heated up.
Crs Luke Acland, Kate Fulton and Matt Lawrey left the chamber after deputy mayor Paul Matheson, who was chairing a full council meeting yesterday, attempted to skip further questioning and debate on a decision put to council yesterday.
Lawrey said just before leaving that there was no choice, ‘‘either we leave the chamber or we vote against it’’, when Matheson shut down his attempts at questioning the process.
The council was attempting to make a decision on electing a code of conduct committee, consisting of Crs Bill Dahlberg and Gaile Noonan, and two nonelected members of a council committee, John Murray and John Peters. It was stated at the outset that the council was not to discuss the code of conduct process, the content of the complaint, or any potential outcomes of the process.
The code of conduct review process was triggered in May when Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese lodged a complaint after Rutledge was accused by multiple councillors of harassing behaviour and trying to influence voting on a decision for funding his wife’s zoo, Natureland.
Under the code of conduct, council chief executive Pat Dougherty could delegate the process to either the full council, a delegated committee, or the existing code of conduct panel. Dahlberg and Noonan were determined to be the only councillors who did not have a conflict of interest, as they had not made any allegations, witnessed any incidents, or spoken to the media about the issue.
Since they were the only two deemed to be impartial, Dougherty could only delegate to either the panel or a delegated committee. The committee needed to be granted sufficient power by the full council before he could chose to delegate the decision to it.
However, the meeting descended into chaos, with one councillor asking for an apology, and three leaving the chamber.
Dahlberg said Acland and Fulton were slandering him and accusing him of not being impartial.
Acland said Dahlberg was a close friend of Rutledge. He noted that Fulton had been left off the code of conduct panel despite not having any involvement in the alleged breach of conduct.
Council staff member Mary Birch, who was delivering the report, said Fulton was considered ‘‘interested’’ because at the time the panel was being convened, she had outstanding code of conduct processes.
Fulton asked if the conclusion could be drawn that ‘‘because I wasn’t Rutledge’s best friend at the time, I was not considered impartial’’, at which point Dahlberg raised a point of order.
The meeting then became what Acland described as a ‘‘bit of a farce’’.
‘‘I’m going to bring it all to a close by moving it,’’ Matheson said, despite no debate having taken place.
At this point, Cr Mel Courtney said it was ‘‘appalling governance’’. Cr Tim Skinner said he was ‘‘not at all comfortable with this’’.
Lawrey, Acland, and Fulton left the meeting, with Acland saying he did so because Matheson ‘‘wouldn’t allow debate, in clear breach of standing orders’’.
Fulton also left due to the lack of debate, and said she hadn’t meant to imply that Dahlberg was not impartial.
Eventually, after adjourning and allowing things to cool down, the council reassembled, debated the issue, and approved the formation of the committee.
The next step in the review process is for Dougherty to delegate to an independent report on the alleged breach of conduct to either the newly formed committee or the existing code of conduct panel.