At an extraordinary meeting on Friday morning, seven councillors requested that mayor Simon Murray step down. Cr Margaret O'Connor read the statement on behalf of Crs Peter Bailey, John Galletly, Andrew Murat, Debra O'Brien, Dorothy Robinson, Ian Tiley, and herself.
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Cr O'Brien provided The Armidale Express on Monday afternoon with a copy of the statement.
"We noticed this morning that the live stream recording of the meeting stops after the Mayor's speech," Cr O'Brien said. (The original recording lasted about 40 minutes; it now lasts less than 12.) "So the very reason for the meeting has been left out of the media and the council records.
"The community have a right to know the reasons for the meeting rather than just the response. A loss of no-confidence in the mayor is now a passed resolution of council by the governing body."
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Statement of seven Armidale Regional Councillors stating reasons for requesting Cr Simon Murray to step down as mayor:
Welcome all. Our community and the media have asked for reasons for this extraordinary meeting and our call for Cr Murray to resign. We don't want to go public and criticise our colleague. But you want to know, so here goes. Please know we have exhausted every other avenue of pleading with the Mayor to improve his performance as leader.
In September Cr Murray was re-elected Mayor by one vote. Since then two more councillors have lost confidence in his leadership. They met with him on 16 January asking him to step down as a result. This is a normal part of Westminster democracy. Leader loses support, leader steps down.
Councillor Murray has said no. He's digging in. He's publicly stated the two councillors gave him 20 reasons why the seven councillors had lost confidence in him. But Cr Murray found not one of those reasons was "substantial".
Seven of us beg to differ. Cr Murray's dismissal of our request and those 20 reasons really tells the story. His decision to dig in has brought us all to this extraordinary meeting. We would have much preferred the matter be dealt with in private, but Cr Murray clearly does not.
It's inaccurate for Cr Murray to claim that this has come out of the blue, that he has had no warning. In fact the last two years have seen an increasing number of councillors meeting with him to implore him to listen to so many of their concerns around his leadership.
This came to a head mid last year when things got so bad we called on a renowned retired General Manager to help us. After many interviews he wrote an excellent report and also talked to us as a group, pointing out our weaknesses, ways we could become a better team. We were so deeply disappointed that our Mayor ignored the advice and in fact openly disparaged it as a waste of time. We think this deprived our entire governing body of the opportunity to grow into a cohesive team.
At the January 16 meeting Cr Murray reiterated that he was unwilling to work at all with four councillors. This on its own would be a sufficient reason to ask him to resign. That is not the correct approach for a Mayor. He or she must be inclusive, regardless of personal or political differences. Each one of us has been elected to do a job for our community and must be supported in that.
Obviously we cannot tell you the most grievous matters that underlie why we are here today. But we will touch on a few problems so you can understand why we have asked Cr Murray to step aside.
1. Failure to consult with colleagues: The Mayor must be collegiate and work with and for his team. But when the convoy of 80 Irish water trucks arrived in Armidale last November, although the Mayor had known for three weeks of their plans he chose to not tell us, and to pass the organisation of this event onto a community group, about three or four days prior to the convoy's arrival here. We got a casual email the afternoon before the day the water convoy arrived in Armidale. We don't agree with that call. We were hugely embarrassed that the Mayor kept this information from us and as a result we were not able to give the Irish convoy a fitting welcome and celebration of their extraordinary generosity.
2. Recently our council was offered several million dollars to build our long planned recreation facilities out at Dumaresq Dam. Staff refused the offer without telling us! The Mayor has defended that decision. We are mortified that we therefore lost the opportunity to get the town beach facility we so badly need during these hot, dry and difficult times. A neighbouring council is now spending the money we could have had.
3. Representing us outside the area: The Mayor's role includes attending many meetings at regional, state and national level as well as our new regional Joint Organisation as our representative. But we are not consulted about what we want him to say on our behalf, nor do we get reports back. This puts our region at a disadvantage for funding opportunities and to influence policy matters that impact on our residents. It keeps us ignorant of how to help our community.
4. We are starved of information: Our job is to make good decisions that are informed by all the facts. But many many questions asked by councillors are ignored and documents we need to see are withheld. The Mayor supports this starvation of information. When we persist we are labelled " bullies" and threatened with codes of conduct.This cannot go on.
5. Councillors gagged: The Mayor supports the current ban on two of our councillors being able to speak to any staff. This makes it impossible for them to do their job. We think it is the Mayor's job to step in and resolve the problem but Cr Murray disagrees. He has refused to help. We don't think this is good enough.
6. Blocked from engaging with the community: The Mayor has supported the current position where councillors are discouraged or banned from getting involved in Council run community events where they could officially engage with community members. Our keenness to be involved is rebuffed as interfering. We expect our Mayor to facilitate our engagement with the community, not block it.
7. Councillors excluded from water policies: Unlike neighbouring Councils here councillors have been excluded from any decision making over water restrictions and policy. Cr Murray is a strong advocate for leaving us out of the loop on water matters. We don't agree (and this is only one example of important policy areas where we are being excluded).
Losing confidence in Cr Murray as our leader is the one and only reason we need to ask the Mayor to step down. We owe a duty to the community to put in our best performance, If we think our Mayor is blocking us and damaging the public interest we must act regardless of criticism. Taking no action would be even more damaging and neglecting our duty to the community.
This is not a personal matter between the seven councillors and Cr Murray. It is a matter of the public interest. We must move forward as best we can to serve our community to the max. And we must have full disclosure of matters for which we are responsible. We want to deliver more to our community and to properly exercise our responsibilities.
We have seven precious months left of this council. We can't waste any more time. We must face up to the big issues here - drought and bushfire recovery, climate change, economic growth, sustainable water supplies and infrastructure needs.
It's true we cannot force the Mayor to resign but we appeal to his sense of duty under the Westminster system of government, to step aside when he has lost the support of his team.