Lack of answers on Gympie council CEO exit leaves a dangerous void

A dearth of answers to explain the sudden departure of Gympie council’s latest chief has left a huge void which threatens to swallow this council’s re-election chances.

Nature, they say, does not like a vacuum.

Which makes council life fascinating because that’s where you’ll most commonly find black holes and things that suck.

The latest void can be observed swirling around the Gympie council CEO’s chair following Shane Gray’s sudden departure.

But if power loves a vacuum, then social media gossip is infatuated with it.

In the weeks since Gray’s exit the rumour mill has been grinding overtime on Facebook with constant speculation about “the real story”, and whether it involved personal reasons or arm twisting.

The latter is certainly possible.

There is an undeniable sense that something was, if not rotten in the state of Denmark, then certainly becoming malodorous.

Mayor Glen Hartwig’s re-election chances may take a hit as a result of the information void surrounding CEO Shane Gray’s resignation.

The council’s name has appeared multiple times in the past two years on the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission’s hearing list.

Unfortunately as these either have not been resolved or were settled, information has seemingly been sucked into the black hole otherwise known as “the nondisclosure agreement”.

Then there was the clash with the union over the council’s internal investigation practices and the incorrect information given to councillors ahead of the repealing of two planning laws which swiftly became the council’s equivalent of a kidney stone, refusing to pass without a whole lot of pain.

However, unlike the Bob Fredman saga of 2016, there has yet to appear a paper trail which explicitly says “terminate your employment”.

What we do have is an accepted resignation, albeit one missing a lot of context.

Without it we are left with a vacuum; one which threatens to suck Mayor Glen Hartwig and his councillors’ re-election chances into oblivion if it isn’t turned around soon.