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Departing Gore District Council chief executive Stephen Parry is likely to continue in the role until his replacement is appointed.
The council announced in a release yesterday it had appointed Mr Parry as interim chief executive while it recruits a new chief executive.
He resigned on September 4 and was due to finish up at the end of this month.
But he would stay on — possibly for months — as the council is yet to get the recruitment under way for his replacement.
Gore District Mayor Ben Bell said in the statement the terms and conditions of Mr Parry’s employment as interim chief executive had yet to be agreed upon.
Mr Bell, who at 23 was the country’s youngest ever mayor when elected last year, and Mr Parry did not get on and were not talking before Christmas last year.
Eventually an intermediary was appointed by the council earlier this year as the relationship between the two continued to falter.
The stand-off culminated in a group of councillors calling on Mr Bell to resign in May.
At a council meeting that month where the resignation was to be discussed, not one councillor put forward a vote of no confidence.
In a joint statement after the meeting, Mr Bell and the councillors apologised to the community and each other for the turmoil of recent days.
They said the elected members agreed to put their differences aside and refocus on serving the people of the Gore district.
The council meets today, behind closed doors, to consider potential recruitment agencies to undertake the search for a new chief executive.
Neither Mr Bell nor Mr Parry could be contacted yesterday.