North Sydney ­councillors break silence over incident that led to mayor’s banishment

THE true extent of the vitriol and warring that has torn apart the North Sydney ­Council can finally be exposed, and it’s not pretty reading.

JILLY GIBSON

THE true extent of the vitriol and warring that has torn apart the North Sydney ­Council can finally be exposed, with revelations that its mayor Jilly Gibson confronted a ­senior staff member and spread ­rumours that a council senior executive and a ­fellow councillor were having an ­affair.

Ms Gibson was ordered by an independent reviewer to apologise to the executive and the councillor for spreading the ­rumour among council staff.

The Baird government has launched a public inquiry into the council’s behaviour to determine whether it should be suspended ahead of the looming council amalgamations.

North Sydney councillors have finally broken their ­silence over an incident in ­August 2014 that prompted the mayor to be suspended from the council ­offices and banned from meeting with council staff unless there were others present and the meetings recorded.

According to one witness report submitted to an inquiry, Ms Gibson allegedly verbally abused the executive after a councillors’ briefing, yelling ­“demeaning’’ comments and “aggressively’’ waving a finger “no more than an inch from his face’’.

The councillor with whom Ms Gibson alleged he was having an affair was also a witness at the inquiry.

She said the incident forced the council to seek legal advice on behalf of its staff and led to the council invoking protocols for all meetings between the mayor and senior staff.

“I witnessed the incident and provided a statement to the investigator, as did other councillors and council staff,” the councillor said.

“The council sought legal advice, and as a result of the incident protocols were put in place for interactions between the general manager and the mayor which include that the general manager not meet with the mayor unless there are others present.”

The incident did not result in any code of conduct findings against Ms Gibson.

On the condition of ­anonymity, five councillors and senior staff told of the attempted smear campaign against the general manager.

Ms Gibson said yesterday she was appalled that the allegations had been made public.

“I’m not commenting on code of conduct inquiries. Those allegations aren’t even out in the open, so I can’t ­comment on them,’’ she said.

A spokesman for the Minister for Local Government Paul Toole said: “Since 2013, the NSW government has taken all appropriate steps under the local government act to improve the functioning of North Sydney Council.’’