Hamilton mayor Andrew King said it was appropriate to convince councillors to vote his way on the eve of the Long Term Plan deliberations. Photo / File
Hamilton mayor Andrew King invited a select number of city councillors to his home last week to discuss which way they would vote over the Long Term Plan.
Deputy mayor Martin Gallagher, Mark Bunting, Ryan Hamilton, Geoff Taylor and Dave Macpherson all attended a "pop in, pop out" discussion at the mayor's central Hamilton home on Wednesday morning to chat about the hearings the day before they began.
The council's three women councillors Paula Southgate, Angela O'Leary and Siggi Henry - as well as Garry Mallett, Leo Tooman, James Casson and Rob Pascoe were not invited to have morning tea at the mayor's house. However, some did have brief chats with him in his office.
Mayor Andrew King told the Herald, via text message, he met most of his colleagues on Wednesday face-to-face to talk about the $175 million benefits for Hamilton for the Peacocke sub-division and anything else elected members wanted to raise. The benefits he was referring to was the interest-free loan from the Government.
"One declined to meet with me and another said they had nothing to discuss. Some met at my home, in my office at council or by phone. There are 12 councillors so to fit in all meetings in one day was a challenge."
He said he had an open-door policy and denied suggestions they were closed-door meetings or that it was inappropriate to share his view with councillors outside council meetings. He would not respond to questions about why some councillors were invited to his house and why some were not, other than it had to be wherever it suited to fit everyone in.
"It is totally normal and appropriate and I would expect every mayor to communicate with their council members whenever and wherever it is convenient."
Gallagher said King happened to be working from home to "chew the fat" mainly over the proposed Peacocke subdivision in the south of Hamilton, which both he and the mayor were in favour of.
Gallagher said the meeting had been "over-dramatised" and the purpose of the discussion was the Peacocke's development, signed off by council during the Long Term Plan deliberations, which would enable 3700 new houses to be built in the south of the city over the next 10 years at cost of $813.3m.
"Are we suggesting Phil Goff sees councillors on one-on-one or twos or threes? It wasn't a set meeting, it was a pop-in, pop-out primarily around Peacockes," Gallagher said.
"One we managed to convince, one we didn't - as simple as that.
"In my humble view, it's much to do about nothing, but it is what it is."
Bunting said he attended the meeting because he had concerns about spending such a large amount of money in one area and had a lot of questions around the brilliance of the idea.
Bunting would not say who else was invited as he didn't want to "breach confidences", but said "I think he put out an invitation to a whole lot of people".
When asked whether the mayor tried to convince him to vote for it, he replied: "Totally. Absolutely. He made no secret about that - it's one of his real big ones.
"God this is starting to sound dodgy," Bunting said. "The thing is everyone talks to everyone about these meetings. Look, I had a coffee with Paula before hand, I talked to Geoff because he's my mate and we pretty much knew where each of us was going with everything - not that we colluded. Ryan and I knew where we were going, I knew where Leo was going - everyone talks to everybody."
Angela O'Leary was not invited to the meeting at the mayor's house, but had heard about it after the fact. She was also not invited to meet with him in his office or had a chat a with him on the phone.
O'Leary believed the meeting was to figure out how they were going to vote leading up to the deliberations on Thursday.
"Apart from that being a complete lack of ethical behaviour just calling a portion of elected members to his private residence to discuss - what I can only assume - how they are going to vote on certain things, it's also a breach of the Local Government Act."
O'Leary said the act ruled that all decisions had to be done openly and transparently within the process. "It's a real slap in the face for Hamilton residents."
Leo Tooman told the Herald he did not know anything about the meeting at the mayor's residence. He said he had not had phone call discussions about voting strategies with other elected members earlier in the week.
Paula Southgate was not invited to the meeting and had only heard about it by accident afterwards. However she had spoken to King and separately with other councillors about the long term plan earlier in the week.
Southgate said she would have preferred council take a more inclusive approach to debating and discussing projects as a whole.
Siggi Henry agreed and said she ended up cancelling the mayor's invitation to meet him at his office in the afternoon because she had too much reading to do before the deliberations the next day.
She said she did not get excited about certain councillors meeting in groups as she felt that's where more discussions were happening rather than in council meetings with everyone.
Rob Pascoe said the only invite he had with King was a brief phone call on Wednesday afternoon about where he asked him what he thought the rates should be set at.
He also believed King would have been lobbying for other support for his pet projects such as the Victoria on the River expansion where he wanted to buy and bowl buildings and which scraped through on Friday with 7 for and 6 against.
Mallett said he was not concerned about being excluded from the meeting and had a similar discussion about Peacockes with the mayor in his office earlier in the week so the mayor knew where he stood.
Casson did also not get invited to his house, saying he had received a text from the mayor to meet him at the office at 8am on Wednesday. They eventually met at 3.30pm on the 9th floor of the council's offices. "Put it this way, I'm not upset about not getting invited to his house."
Councillors Dave Macpherson, Geoff Taylor and Ryan Hamilton did not return requests to speak from the Herald yesterday.
During the Long Term Plan discussion, councillors voted on a 9.7 per cent rate increase in the first year, moved the rating system from land to a capital value rating system over three years and approved big projects such as Peacockes, setting aside $7m to buy buildings between Victoria on the River and Embassy Park and contributing $25m towards to a new regional theatre. It also reinstated its plans to fund destination playgrounds in the city.