The leadership structure at the Christchurch City Council is falling apart.

And it had mayor Phil Mauger in a real tizz at the start of yesterday’s council meeting.

This was when he announced that they had to kick people out and go into closed meeting straight away because there was something urgent they needed to discuss about chief executive Dawn Baxendale.

I’ve sat through a lot of council meetings in my time and I have never seen anything like that happen. Normally, this sort of thing happens at the end of the open meeting. So they do all the stuff that isn’t confidential or commercially-sensitive first, and then they get people to leave so they can have their private convos.

But yesterday was different. It was urgent, apparently, and it had to be done right at the start. So council staff and members of the public who had turned up had to stand around outside for nearly two hours while the councillors discussed this urgent, confidential stuff about the chief executive.

Here’s a quote from what Phil Mauger said about why they had to go into closed meeting straight away: “The reason this report cannot wait, is because there’s an ongoing statutory process already under way and we need to resolve the next steps.”

And he said they had to do it there and then because there’s only five weeks until Christmas and only two further council meetings between now and then.

The key words, though, in the little bit that Phil gave away before the meeting was closed to the public, were “statutory process”. Phil said there was a statutory process already underway.

Of course, there were enquiries left, right and centre as to what this statutory process was that the mayor was referring to. One report I’ve seen says the council said it was a direct quote from the Local Government Act which relates to the terms of Dawn Baxendale’s employment.

I should say too that one of the few people allowed to stay in the room for the closed meeting was Susan Rowe, who is a partner in the law firm Buddle Findlay.
She leads the firm’s employment and health and safety team in Christchurch.

So, as you can imagine, we’ve all been on the phones since then texting councillors. And not one of them has been prepared to say anything. It’s a really closed shop. Even one in particular who I thought might say something was a no-go. So I think we can assume that what was discussed in that closed council meeting yesterday is quite significant.

The word I’ve heard is that more will become apparent next week.

But what we do know is the chief executive is under some sort of cloud. The head of the council’s water division and the general manager of infrastructure have gone.
The chief financial officer is on sick leave and the head of HR is on leave - having only been in the role a few months.

What further evidence do you need that the leadership at the Christchurch City Council is crumbling?