Ōpōtiki Mayor Lyn Riesterer has withdrawn her complaint against councillor Barry Howe.

This comes after an independent investigation found councillor he had breached the Ōpōtiki District Council's code of conduct.

At the beginning of Tuesday morning's council meeting, at which councillors were to decide what action to take over the breach, Riesterer announced that she was withdrawing the complaint and withdrawing the item from the agenda.

The withdrawn agenda item included a report from independent investigator Philip Jones, stating that he had found Howe in breach of the council's code of conduct.

'I pondered very hard overnight about where we go from this,” Riesterer said. 'I'm not happy that our fellow councillors need to determine sanctions.”

However, she said that the report 'still stands”.

Howe responded that, as the mayor still stood by her accusations, he was entitled to right of reply.

'I would still like that right of reply,” he said.

Councillor David Moore said that because the action had been withdrawn, there was no need for a defence and asked Howe to accept the withdrawal.

'This is a matter that we should discuss amongst ourselves and not in public. It's very unfortunate and it's just breaking the trust further and further. It's something we need to get sorted for the communities. We've got too many things happening.”

Riesterer agreed with Moore that the matter should be discussed further in private.

The breach of the code of conduct happened on December 7, when Howe posted information on social media that had been presented to him at a council workshop the previous day.

The information was about a proposal to develop council-owned lots 9 and 10 in Church Street into new council offices instead of the planned commercial retail and office premises.

Howe stated on Facebook that he was against the idea and sought the opinions of ratepayers and business owners. He also gave information about the cost of the proposal.

Three days later, Riesterer wrote to council chief executive Aileen Lawrie requesting a code of conduct investigation be undertaken into Mr Howe's behaviour.

The complaint was referred to Mr Jones of PJ & Associates, a consultant who specialises in local government matters, for investigation.

Jones found Howe was materially in breach of the code for disclosing information provided to him as an elected member. In addition, he found Howe's Facebook comments to be factually incorrect.

In his post, Howe said the proposal was put forward by council staff at the December 6 meeting.

'The ‘proposal' has previously been discussed by council in a workshop in November 2021 and [it was] agreed that this proposal was worthy of further consideration. It is therefore incorrect to state that the proposal was put forward by council staff at the December workshop,” Jones' report said.

He also said Mr Howe had misrepresented the cost of the project to ratepayers.

'This post was clearly undermining the reputation of the local authority.”

Lawrie's recommendation to the council was that Mr Howe be invited to speak in his defence at yesterday's meeting and that the council made decisions on penalties or actions.

Howe told the Ōpōtiki News that he would have liked the chance to respond to the accusations, but 'at the end of the day, common sense prevailed”.

'I had planned to defend myself by raising Section 14 of the Local Government Act.

The act states that a local authority should conduct its business in an open, transparent, and democratically accountable manner. Mr Howe said he felt that council had not done that well around its plans for Lots 9 and 10.

'But I don't want to go on about it anymore. It's been dealt with, in a common sense way, I felt. We've got so many great things that are happening in this town. We need to just tick that one off and move on.”

The proposal to move the council offices to Lots 9 and 10 was voted down at a meeting on December 21, with councillors divided two against five.

Councillor Debi Hocart said at the time that the vote might have ended differently if the process had not been so 'out of whack”.

This was not the first time Howe had faced complaints that he was in breach of the council's code of conduct.

In 2010, during his first term, he faced a hearing over comments he made about a cleaning company that was awarded a public toilet cleaning and litter control contract.

He said they were not a local company and criticised the standard of work, both of which turned out to be inaccurate. He publicly apologised for any offence given.

He was also accused by the deputy mayor of the time, Selby Fisher, of leaking information from a confidential meeting about matters raised with the chief executive about a possible breach of a liquor licence. However, Howe denied that he had done so

-Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air

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