Councillor Chris Milne has been ordered to publicly apologise after an investigation found he tried to influence a land deal involving a tennis facility his wife is president of.
He will be removed from the Hutt City Council's audit and risk subcommittee and Seaview Marina Ltd Board unless he givesan unqualified public apology by October 23.
The apology must acknowledge his actions were serious, in breach of the code of conduct, were wrong, and would not be repeated.
An extraordinary meeting of Hutt City Council today lasted seven gruelling hours.
Councillors thrashed out the consequences for Milne's actions behind closed doors.
Along with the apology, Milne has been ordered to pay $16,500 for the external costs of the investigation.
He will only have access to council staff via the chief executive for the rest of the financial year, and will have to undergo training to address the issues the report identified.
Milne said even though the investigation found against him, he hasn't lost much sleep over it.
"I do believe I was doing my job as a councillor."
He said it was good to share what has been going on for the past six months and "emerge from under the cloak of stifling legalese".
The atmosphere in the meeting was tense with councillor Josh Briggs calling points of order during Milne's defence speech.
Milne fired back: "You do this all the time, you constantly give points of order, can you just shut up and let me get on with it."
The breaches relate to two phone calls Milne made.
One was about a potential land deal that could result in money being redirected into Mitchell Park Hutt Valley Tennis Facility.
Milne's wife is the president of Hutt Valley Tennis, but neither have a pecuniary interest in the organisation.
Milne rang a council officer who told the investigation the councillor tried to encourage him in a quite "bullish and forceful" manner to bring a formal proposal before council as soon as possible.
But Milne said today it was not true he tried to influence the council officer, with whom he has had a good working relationship for many years.
"Anyone who knows Bruce [the officer] and I, would know the idea that I could boss Bruce around is fanciful."
Milne said he was only checking on where things were at.
Hutt City Mayor Campbell Barry. Photo / Georgina Campbell
On another occasion Milne rang Waste Management's Lower North Island general manager David Howie during a live tender for the council's waste collection services.
Howie told the investigation he began to feel uncomfortable about the conversation getting close to crossing the boundaries.
It found Milne's call was inappropriate while there was a live tender process and risked Howie gleaning information that potentially gave Waste Management an advantage over other prospective tenderers.
But Milne said today that was a "long bow to draw" and almost anything could be constructed out of the word "potentially".
He said his actions were driven by concerns from members of the public about biased consultation over the council's waste collection services.
Milne said council set up councillors to have a fundamental conflict in their role by running consultation and tendering processes in parallel.
"What are elected members supposed to do when they have good grounds for doubting what they have been told by council officers? How is an elected member to resolve this other than by undertaking independent pursuit of the information, in a careful way?"
He noted the tender itself was never discussed in the phone call, and alleged other people in the council had met prospective tenderers as well.
Hutt City Council has received a letter from law firm Franks Ogilvie threatening judicial review of the process of the council's waste collection service.
Council chief executive Jo Miller said the council intends to defend its position, and has engaged lawyers.
Mayor Campbell Barry noted at the beginning of the meeting today it was now six months since the matter was raised in April, which was not able to be resolved informally.
"It is with a heavy heart I think for all of us that we find ourselves here today."
