Council in crisis talks after sackings call

Julie Hardaker. Photo / APN

The Hamilton City Council was locked in urgent talks yesterday after the Local Government Minister was asked to sack the councillors following a damning audit report into their handling of the V8 contract.

Former Hamilton mayor Margaret Evans, backed by another former mayor, has called on the minister, Rodney Hide, to sack the councillors and reappoint Mayor Julie Hardaker as the city's commissioner.

Mr Hide is due to meet Ms Hardaker, councillor Martin Gallagher and council chief executive Barry Harris on Monday, in a meeting asked for by Ms Hardaker.

The councillors are believed to have challenged the mayor on her decision to meet Mr Hide without informing them. Ms Hardaker said last night that the talks had been a "confidential team meeting" to discuss the briefing with Mr Hide on Monday. She said the councillors had not wanted her to attend the meeting alone, so had decided to send Mr Gallagher with her.

She said the council had discussed the points she would raise with Mr Hide on how the council had approved its governance.

In a report released last month into the V8 Supercars event, Audit New Zealand blamed council management - including former Hamilton City Council chief executive Michael Redman and his deputy Blair Bowcott - for poor reporting, spending millions of dollars without authorisation and keeping the council in the dark over significant issues.

Mr Redman has said he was made a scapegoat. The report also found councillors had agreed to the deals without seeing copies of the contract and had made too many decisions in meetings closed to the public.

Mr Hide was briefed on the V8 audit yesterday. He has also been liaising with Hamilton West MP Tim Macindoe over the report.

Mr Macindoe and his fellow Hamilton MP, David Bennett, met the mayor and Mr Harris yesterday.

Mr Macindoe said he had spoken with Mr Hide's office on Thursday and although the council's actions had angered the public he did not think they had breached local government legislation. The meeting with the mayor confirmed to him that it wasn't a "long-term systemic operation issue within the council".

Further concerns have also been raised this week about other projects within the council being mismanaged including claims the total spending of the Claudelands Event Centre has been manipulated.

On Thursday Ms Evans emailed Mr Hide, Prime Minister John Key and about 100 community, environmental, political and business contacts, saying there was fair grounds for all councillors to be sacked.

Another former Hamilton mayor, David Braithwaite, agreed with her short-term solution.

Under her plans, she wants Ms Hardaker to be reappointed as commissioner and the two new councillors, Margaret Forsyth and Mr Gallagher, to be reinstated as assistant commissioners. She also called for an election to be held next year.