He called council staff 'scum' - now he's been elected to work with them

Wednesday, 12 October 2022

A Hamilton City councillor-elect who faced restrictions after “profanity and insults in his communication with staff,” and who labelled another council’s staff as “scum” and “disgusting filth”, has said he hopes his new colleagues “won’t see me as an enemy”.

Andrew Bydder​ said that when it came to his new role as a Hamilton councillor, his past actions “should not be a problem going forward”.

Bydder was provided with a single point of contact in his dealings with Hamilton City Council back in 2021 for a six-month duration.

“This restriction was put in place under Council’s Unreasonable Customer Conduct Management Policy,” said HCC chief executive Lance Vervoort.​

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“Mr Bydder’s restrictions resulted from profanity, and insults in his communication with staff.”

Vervoort said Bydder complied with all the restrictions, which were lifted in September 2021.

“In relation to Mr Bydder’s election result, Council can confirm it has no ongoing restrictions related to Mr Bydder,” he said.

Stuff has also obtained, via an Official Information Act request to Waipa Council, an email sent by Bydder to staff about dog control policy, sent in June 2022.

Addressing “Dear Waipa Council Staff”, Bydder goes on to says he is “appalled at your racism and corruption, you disgusting filth”.

“My culture says dogs can walk around Lake Te Koutu (sic) because I am a f****** ratepayer. How dare you scum suggest my culture is second rate.

“Get your dickhead CEO to apologise to me or am I not brown enough for you.”

He also asked for the email to be copied to all councillors so “I can tell them about the absolute incompetence and service failure of your staff on every project I deal with.”

Asked about his tone in that email, and dealings with Hamilton City Council Bydder, conceded they were “certainly blunt” and that “robust and colourful” communications had taken place.

“But there’s two sides to every story.”

He claimed that his tone dealing with Hamilton Council was a deliberate ploy to escalate matters as then chief executive Richard Briggs “wouldn't deal with my complaints”.

“Every architect, builder, property developer is frustrated with them [Hamilton Council]”, he said.

Bydder said things got heated due to council’s “lack of action”, and that once he was assigned a single point of contact for council matters things progressed smoothly.

“Not what I wanted, but effective.”

Bydder said that while he still had issues with other councils, he did not foresee any problems with Hamilton City Council, especially as a councillor, albeit a reluctant one.

He said when he realised he had succeeded in his bid to secure a council seat, “I did not celebrate”.

“I hope I can make changes but I never wanted to be a councillor. I want to try and improve things, the bureaucracy is making things hard for a lot of people.”

Bydder said he wanted to empower council staff to have greater decision-making powers, something he believes could have avoided some of his past scrapes, and that “the current chief executive is a fresh start”.

“I’ve got no issues with him at all,” he said.

“I hope they won’t see me as the enemy.”