The decision-making process was slammed as ‘‘woeful’’ by one councillor — Russell Lund.
The council had reached a new low point, he said.
His own behaviour was then called out by Dunedin Mayor Sophie Barker.
Cr Lund’s commentary could open the council to legal action and might also be contrary to the code of conduct, she said.
Another councillor, Andrew Simms, raised a series of concerns about the council’s plan for non-public debate, and he sought to calm things down.
Cr Lund pressed ‘‘reply to all’’ to a list of email addresses Cr Simms had set up and probably did not intend to target staff, Cr Simms said.
Cr Lund told the Otago Daily Times he had since apologised for inadvertently including staff in his email.
Meanwhile, the council has yet to resolve in what way it will help to tackle homelessness. Such a call has been delayed, probably until April 23.
‘‘Councillors have raised questions about whether the report should be considered in non-public, so the decision was taken to delay the process in order to give the issue due consideration,’’ council chief executive Sandy Graham said.
The council had hoped a housing outreach service — either through an external provider or by the council itself — could be run from the start of this month.
A closed-door extraordinary council meeting scheduled last Thursday specifically to discuss the service was cancelled.
The ODT asked the council what was happening — a spokesman said on Tuesday the April timeframe ‘‘was always going to be challenging to meet, and there will now be a short delay’’, but homelessness in Dunedin was complex and solutions required sustained long-term effort.
Yesterday, the ODT received from Cr Benedict Ong a chain of emails indicating what had been happening behind the scenes.
It started with Cr Simms flagging last Thursday he was uncomfortable about the plan for a non-public debate.
The reason cited, ‘‘commercial sensitivity’’, did not hold up, he said in an email to the mayor.
‘‘Unless I have missed a paper, the commercial details of each bid are not disclosed.
‘‘Additionally, I am surprised that councillors are not being given the details of the short-listed bids and their relative merits.’’
Cr Simms said not enough background detail had been provided before any debate.
Cr Lund then escalated matters.
‘‘I am incredulous at the absolute paucity of information in this alleged report, and the position of staff that it is even professional to attempt to have council make a decision of intense public interest with no detail whatsoever around the bids received and the analysis of those bids,’’ he said.
Cr Lund suggested staff might have a conflict of interest — the council was a direct competitor in the process and staff in the affected department wrote the report, he said.
Ms Barker was appalled.
‘‘To send a targeted email like this to a staff member as the primary recipient is completely inappropriate,’’ she said.
‘‘I consider the language and accusations to be highly inappropriate, especially in a professional council environment.’’
In a statement yesterday, Ms Graham said there were no conflicts of interest involving staff.
Ms Barker said in her email the assessment panel who short-listed the providers included staff from parks and recreation and policy, and it was led by the procurement team.
A tenders board then selected the preferred supplier, she said.
Ms Barker said the report was confidential because it identified organisations that applied, and because staff might then negotiate the final terms.
An adjusted version of the report might yet be made public.
Responding the next day, Cr Simms said both he and Cr Lund assisted with the combined bid from the Dunedin Night Shelter and Catholic Social Services.
They had not seen any of the bids, but could ‘‘reliably predict that the short-listed DNS/CSS bid is less than half the cost per annum to ratepayers’’ of a bid by the Pact Group or the cost of an internal service, Cr Simms said.
His company had offered to provide a vehicle to support the DNS/CSS bid.
‘‘There may be a very good reason why this short-listed bid was set aside, but that is not explained in the report provided to councillors,’’ Cr Simms said.
He told the ODT yesterday the council was united about getting a homeless outreach service going and it was a pity disagreement about the approach had become the focus.
‘‘A rethink will allow us to probably get it right,’’ Cr Simms said.
Ms Barker said it took time to ‘‘bring proposals like this to fruition, but I’m focused on delivering something that helps those most in need in our community’’.
In an email to councillors, the mayor said it was important to understand the lines between governance and management.
Procurement matters were operational, she said.
Cr John Chambers said the discussion was deferred, pending more information.
‘‘Personally, I think the paper prepared for last week’s meeting did not contain quite enough detail to guide making a recommendation to [have] the service in-house or contract-out.’’
— Additional reporting Ruby Shaw
