Tea Tree Gully council meeting scrutinises Kevin Knight
Angry ratepayers have applauded councillors – before demanding their mayor pay the huge legal bill for investigating his conduct breaches.
North & North East
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Furious ratepayers descended on a Tuesday council meeting demanding Tea Tree Gully Council Mayor Kevin Knight repay tens of thousands of dollars forked out over his latest conduct breach.
Residents and vocal opponents of Mr Knight, Tina Day, Rose Morton-Hall and Olivia Lorraine, held signs calling for the mayor to repay the fees and applauded as councillors took turns at verbally pummeling the embattled leader.
“(Mr Knight) is continuously ignoring what the councillors are asking of him and just treading all over them,” Ms Lorraine told The Messenger.
“For the past two years he’s just been consistently causing issues.”
Mr Knight was found to have breached the council’s code of conduct when he took his mayoral robe and chain home after councillors voted to remove him from ceremonial duties.
Investigations into Mr Knight found he claimed he had taken the ceremonial garb to use at a former mayor’s funeral.
Despite his reasoning, he was found guilty of two breaches – the second coming when he sent a formal council response out of turn – which came with a legal services bill of $20,000.
Speaking to The Messenger, Mr Knight said he disputed the findings and had returned the robes 14 months ago after a heart operation.
Asked whether he would offer to repay the investigation costs, Mr Knight remained defiant and queried whether a third breach he was found not guilty of, which he said cost $7500, would be paid for by the complainant.
It is believed there has never been an example in South Australia of a complaint respondent repaying legal fees associated with an investigation.
The latest two breaches took Mr Knight’s breach tally to 35, which Councillor Rob Unger said equated to one every six-and-a-half weeks.
“This term of council is an absolute joke,” he said.
“I don’t think any of us fathomed that this is what we’d be spending our time doing when we got on council.
“We read the responses, we read the reports, it’s absolute baloney, most of it.”
Council chief executive John Moyle confirmed the costs of investigations that had confirmed 35 breaches had amounted to more than $80,000 in direct legal fees, with further money spent on legal process advice.
The council considered asking Mr Knight to repay the legal fees but settled on avoiding the situation with Mr Unger asking, “what’s the point?”
“We know what’s going to happen and we’ll be back here with another code of conduct that will cost more than what we’re trying to get reimbursed,” he said.
Since June 2020 Mr Knight has been the subject of four motions of no confidence against him but has remained in his mayoral role.
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