Battle lines are drawn in the Westland District Council, with at least three of the eight councillors now in open revolt with the Mayor Bruce Smith.
Under pressure after a disastrous week, Mr Smith yesterday tried to gag some councillors from speaking publicly, although dissident councillors said the mayor was still using his Facebook and Coasters Club page to continue to present his own views of the ongoing trouble.
One councillor says the old joke about the council being run from the Coasters Bar at the Beachfront Hotel on a Friday afternoon appears to have taken a new form at a new venue, between those who have the mayor's favour, and those who are on the out.
All of this comes as the Department of Internal Affairs, Local Government New Zealand and the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers say they are "closely following" developments at the embattled Hokitika-based council.
Last week the mayor and his new subcommittee suspended the chief executive Tanya Winter - who had already filed a personal grievance against the council - and the mayor was then confronted with a notice of motion for a vote of no confidence from one councillor, and a complaint from another to West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor, who referred it to the Auditor-General.
The basis of the suspension was that Ms Winter had called in the Serious Fraud Office, which then launched an investigation into the council assets manager Vivek Goel, without informing the mayor and councillors.
The council has been left red-faced for granting a $7 million sewerage contract -- subsequently quashed by the incoming council -- to an Auckland cake decorating company, and then in January letting a further $450,000 in water contracts to the same company.
Ms Winter's suspension was rubber-stamped at a hastily arranged extraordinary council meeting on Friday.
Yesterday, Cr David Curruthers disputed Mr Smith's statement that he had "invited" Internal Affairs to send an observer to that meeting.
Cr Curruthers said it was "totally not the case", given representations already made about the way previous meetings had proceeded.
Cr Gray Eatwell also said it was "stretching it a bit" to say the official had been invited.
In a statement last night, Internal Affairs - which has the power to override a council in extreme circumstances - said it, together with Local Government NZ and SOLGM were keeping an eye on the council and they were in "regular contact" with all parties involved.
"On being made aware of the extraordinary meeting called last Friday from our conversations with council, it was jointly determined to be appropriate for the department to attend as an observer only," a spokeswoman said.
"A decision has not been made about the department's involvement moving forward."
Deputy mayor Cr Helen Lash - who was sacked by Mr Smith at New Year before he decided to reinstate her a week later - said yesterday the mayor had consistently ignored advice about following procedure.
Matters that should have been kept "in house" to protect the council legally, including the "debacle" over the chief executive's employment, had spilled out.
Cr Lash said there had also been concerns about the decision making process being influenced through public comment, and arbitrary decisions later being ratified at subsequent meetings.
"Bruce has taken us on this path," Cr Lash said.
"I warned him and warned him. I said, 'look, you've got to monitor how you talk to the chief executive.'"
Cr Lash said those who had offered contrary views to the mayor, including herself, had found themselves cast aside.
Asked at the weekend about his sacking of Cr Lash as deputy mayor, Mr Smith said anyone who did not support him as mayor would not be his deputy.
Cr Lash said the joke now doing the rounds was it was "history all over again," with the faction currently in favour meeting informally on Fridays, something which had been said in jest of the Westland council when it was led by former mayor and now MP Maureen Pugh.
Another example, she said, was when unrestrained comments were made by a councillor about the worth of Hokitika Museum staff, who happened to be sitting in the meeting at the time.
"The mayor had the responsibility to shut it down," Cr Lash said.
Instead, it was allowed to escalate into the public eye with the media present.
She said public utterances about the chief executive had been "obsessed" and "frenetic" after Ms Winter filed her personal grievance claim.
These concerns had been raised, including when the mayor sought written feedback from councillors after a fractious December meeting.
That culminated in Cr Lash receiving an e-mail from the mayor sacking her.
"I supplied some comments and they didn't go down very well, and on New Year's Day I got the sack -- then a week later I got reinstated."
Cr Lash said she was told her role was "to support the mayor" and "you get on the bus and if not, you can expect consequences".
Cr Lash said it came down to how "support" was defined.
"Support doesn't mean you piddle in somebody's pocket."
She had made the pragmatic choice of putting her 'sacking' behind her in order to back those who had voted her in, and "trying to fix the mess".
"I'm there to do a job and that's my focus … I don't bear grudges. It doesn't change what I said and why I said it."
Regardless of the mayor now trying to shut down communication by individual councillors, Cr Lash said she believed she could still speak as an individual.
Cr Eatwell said he and other councillors had been notified by the mayor that they were not allowed to make public statements, following further media exposure - yet the mayor himself was speaking out on his Coasters Club social media club yesterday.
Cr Carruthers, who is currently away from the Coast, said he was unaware of a new edict muzzling councillors, but the continued use by the mayor of a social media page to express his views had compromised him in his view.
"His view (appears to be) that the office of the mayor is the point of communication on behalf of council. I'm sure he is very unhappy about elected members making public statements.
"The mayor is operating a personal media page without reference to the council and therefore we have every right (to speak out)," Cr Carruthers said.
Mr Smith did not respond to questions from the Guardian yesterday but he earlier put a video post on his Facebook page criticising the Guardian's lead article in Monday's paper.
- by Brendon McMahon of the Hokitika Guardian
