Code of Conduct investigation into Wellington mayor Andy Foster cost almost $32,000
Wednesday, 12 May 2021
The code of conduct investigation into Wellington mayor Andy Foster over private information he tried to share with councillors cost ratepayers almost $32,000.
Figures obtained under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act show the council paid Susan Hornsby-Geluk, a Wellington-based employment lawyer, $31,686 for the five-month-long investigation.
She last month found Foster breached the code for elected members and recommended Foster be censured for the “inappropriate” conduct.
The investigation was launched in November, following a complaint from councillor Jenny Condie about Foster’s attempts to share the information with her before a vote on whether to sell and lease council land for a planned $500 million development at Shelly Bay.
**READ MORE:
* From optimism to self-implosion, what happened at Wellington City Council?
* Mayor hints at a trick-up-the-sleeve ahead of big Shelly Bay vote
**
The investigation subsequently revealed Foster tried to give the confidential information to at least two councillors shortly before the vote.
The information contained Foster’s notes from a phone conversation in April 2019 with a former staff member, in which that person alleged another former staff member had pressured council officers to deem the narrow Shelly Bay Rd suitable for the development.
Review author Hornsby-Geluk recommended Foster be censured for the “inappropriate” conduct and apologise to the former staff member.
She found Foster did breach the code, but that the breach was at the “lower end of the scale”.
Councillors will vote on the recommendations on Thursday, and councillor Nicola Young plans to request a vote calling for Foster to pay part of the review cost.
Foster on Tuesday apologised for the breach, but said he did not believe he should be censured for it.
“I want to take the opportunity to apologise for the actions which resulted in the code of conduct investigation, and I accept that I shouldn’t have shared the information as I did,” Foster said.
“I want to apologise to my council colleagues for the distraction that this has caused, which has been reasonably considerable for some of us,” he said.
“And as mayor, I want us to put this behind everyone, and to be able to move forward and focus on the things that really matter to the city.”
Condie recently defended the investigation cost, which at the time was unknown, saying it was in the public interest for Foster’s potential misconduct to be interrogated.