In what was a heated start to the council meeting, Cr Andrew Guile unsuccessfully moved to silence the Mayor when she opened the meeting by reading a speech from the climate strike in Nowra.
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At the extra ordinary meeting on Friday, September 20, Cr Guile moved the "mayor no longer be heard" after she read out the speech made by a Year 10 Bomaderry High School student.
Mayor Amanda Findley refused to hear the motion and instead requested Cr Guile name the part of the code of meeting practice his motion was under.
"You are a disgrace to this meeting the way you're operating, an absolute disgrace. How dare you treat this meeting with such contempt," Cr Guile said during the meeting.
"The mayor has no authority to walk into a meeting and just do what she wants," he later said.
Clr Findley described Guile's language as bullying but said she shrugged her shoulders at it.
"That's the same typical bullying language that Cr Guile has used since he's been on council. So, you know, I shrug my shoulders at it because it's like ... whatever," she said.
"It was clear Mr Guile was agitated that I was bringing the children's speech to the chamber and he seemed to think that it was inappropriate.
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"The climate strike issue was all about getting the attention of government and this was an opportunity for the councillors to hear what the young people of our area had to say.
"I didn't do it as a matter of a mayoral minute because I didn't want to put the council into that position of supporting the climate strike again ... so it was actually, I felt, quite the proper thing to do."
During the meeting, Cr Guile moved an amendment requiring the mayor to receive permission from council before changing the order of business.
"I take the mayor wanted to make a political point but it's not what council's for, it's not a soapbox for a protest, it's a business meeting," he said.
"What we see particularly from the Greens and Labor in council is a string of issues that aren't really core to local government that are being brought up."
At the same meeting, Cr Patricia White was re-elected as deputy mayor and Clr Mitchell Pakes was re-elected as assistant deputy mayor.
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Stuart Thomson
Journalist at the South Coast Register.
Journalist at the South Coast Register.
