Auburn Council will be sacked and an administrator brought in

SCANDAL-HIT Auburn Council will be sacked and an administrator employed, despite a last-ditch bid by deputy mayor Salim Mehajer and his supporters.

SCANDAL-HIT Auburn Council will be sacked next week and an administrator appointed, despite a last-ditch bid by millionaire Deputy Mayor Salim Mehajer and his supporters to cling to power.

Local Government Minister Paul Toole is all-but-­certain to indefinitely suspend Auburn Council on February 5, the end of the 14-day period councillors were given to argue why they should remain in office.

At an emergency council meeting last night the councillors voted to formally argue against being suspended but did not raise or discuss any reasons why they shouldn’t be sacked.

Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer arrives at the emergency council meeting in his luxury Rolls Royce. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Labor’s George Campbell argued that only councillors who brought the council into disrepute should be given the boot, but accepted if that could not be done then the entire council should be dismissed.

“We saw councillors ­tonight desperately trying to cling on and I think it was pretty pathetic,” he said after the 20-minute meeting.

“They should know that it’s the end of the road and the game is over.”

Mr Mehajer, whose flamboyant wedding last year brought his business dealings and the council under scrutiny, said the minister’s letter announcing the planned suspension did not clarify what allegations were being made against the council,

“The issue is we don’t understand what the actual concern is,” he said.

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Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer and other councillors attended the emergency meeting. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The council’s suspension will be followed by a public inquiry examining serious ­allegations of improper conduct, amid claims that some councillors made fortunes by rezoning their own land and developments, which became legal under new local government laws in 2012.

At the time there were warnings the new laws could lead to developers cashing in.

Auburn Council also ­recently voted to sell a disused carpark to Mr Mehajer’s family company, allegedly for millions less than its value. Mr Mehajer, a 29-year-old property developer who ­arrived for the meeting in his $500,000 white Rolls-Royce, has been charged by federal police with fraud over allegations of vote rigging before the 2012 local government elections. He has denied any wrongdoing and will defend the charges.

Salim Mehajer came under public scrutiny at this lavish wedding to bride Aysha. Picture Cameron Richardson

He has also pleaded not guilty to making threats to Lindt Cafe siege survivor Joel Herat’s father Bruce, denying allegations that he said he would kidnap Bruce’s children during an argument at a Burwood gym.

The Deputy Mayor ­fronted the Office of Local Government NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal in 2015, accused of breaching pecuniary interest laws by failing to declare he had an interest when the council voted to increase floor space ratios and building height for a property, which added $1 million to the value of a property owned by one his family’s companies.

Auburn Mayor Le Lam, a real estate agent, said the council backed the public inquiry but not the suspension.

“At the end of the day everything will come out fully, which councillor did the right thing, which councillor did the wrong thing,” she said. “It is up to the minister to investigate, instead of each one of us judging one another.”