Councillor questions prayer mediation

Wanganui District Council member Nicki Higgie has expressed concern about the mediation over the council's controversial prayer.
Representatives of the Human Rights Commission were in Wanganui last Tuesday to mediate between the council and a complainant - believed to be Cr Clive Solomon - over the prayer.
Councillors have said a prayer before each council meeting for many years. Formerly councillors said the Christian "Our Father" prayer, but for the past few years a prayer written by Cr Allan Anderson and his wife Rosemary has been recited.
In February Mayor Annette Main indicated to councillors one councillor objected to the prayer. The issue was brought up again at a council meeting in April, when Ms Main suggested a compromise of the words "Amen" and "Eternal God" be taken out of the prayer, making it an aspirational statement. While some councillors agreed with her, others were adamant the prayer should stay intact.
At that meeting Mr Solomon told councillors he was surprised when he was elected to the council last year to learn of the council's tradition of saying a prayer.
In May, Ms Main suggested the prayer be said before the council meeting began, rather than at the official start of the meeting, but most councillors objected to that.
Councillors passed a resolution that the prayer remain part of the meeting.
Mr Solomon walked out of the meeting as the prayer was being said.
He has refused to confirm he made a complaint to the Human Rights Commission about the prayer. However, he told the Wanganui Chronicle in April that he intended to make a complaint.
In a confidential email that was subsequently leaked to the Chronicle, Mrs Higgie expressed to her fellow councillors and the mayor her disquiet over the mediation process. She said she was concerned that councillors had not been kept informed of negotiations between the mayor and the complainant about the prayer.
"I see from the list of references attached to [the complainant's] document that there was a 'legal opinion from council regarding prayer at council meetings'. That's the first I've heard of it. I still haven't seen it. Who wrote that opinion? Who paid for it? When will I be able to read it?"
Mrs Higgie also said she felt the mediation process had not been explained properly.
She said she wanted a "no surprises" approach from the mayor to enable the council to "work more constructively".
"If we'd all been involved in the prayer issue in an informal, out-of-the-public-eye manner from the word go, we'd have had a chance to resolve it quietly (as we might now), without all the public, very destructive hype."
Ms Main replied to Mrs Higgie in an attempt to address her concerns.
However, other councillors chimed in to the email conversation, Cr Rob Vinsen saying he was not interested in "the whole bloody issue".
He said councillors had already passed a resolution that the prayer should continue to be said, and as far as he was concerned that was an end to the matter.
Cr Philippa Baker-Hogan said she would like the council to focus on "more pressing" issues.
Cr Michael Laws said the ongoing debate over the prayer was an "unwelcome distraction".
"The matter is best handled by a simple majority of councillors' preference. Those who feel disadvantaged or alienated by a Christian prayer do not need to participate."
The mediation did not reach a resolution. Councillors will meet at a yet-to-be confirmed date to try to find a resolution.