Inner West Council to hold secret meeting over CEO’s future
After months of allegations and infighting a Sydney council will hold a secret meeting on Tuesday night over a political storm that has embroiled federal opposition leader Anthony Albanese.
Inner West
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Inner West Council will secretly meet tomorrow night to discuss a raft of options after its controversial CEO flagged he would resign.
The closed confidential session is set to discuss the future of Michael Deegan, its CEO who has been the subject of more than a year of infighting between councillors.
Just months after he was appointed in February 2019 the South Australian Ombudsman made findings that he committed maladministration by using public funds to pay for lavish lunches while working for the state’s transport department.
He was found to have committed misconduct by personally signing off on FOI requests into his spending.
His long time association with federal opposition leader Anthony Albanese has also been questioned, given the Labor leader’s former adviser Darcy Byrne is the mayor of Inner West Council, where he landed the plum job last year.
Mr Albanese has held the inner west seat of Grayndler since the 1990s.
It is understood a raft of legal options regarding the termination will be put before councillors on Tuesday night after Mr Deegan emailed council’s 1600 staff last week to state he was seeking union help to negotiate a payout for his resignation.
The meeting will not be open to the public or the media and the agenda has also been labelled confidential.
Some councillors have long questioned the integrity of how Mr Deegan was employed given his sacking from multiple public office jobs was on the public record.
As is his referral to the NSW Police over a payment he authorised of $72,000 while overseeing the Epping to Chatswood rail project meant for drug and alcohol training, which ended up in the hands of the CFMEU.
The recruitment process of his hiring at council was referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption last year, who passed it onto the Office of Local Government.
Mr Deegan, Mr Albanese and Cr Byrne were subject to a scathing attack in the NSW Upper House last week by MP Scott Farlow, who alleged the trio acted together in hiring the council CEO.
Mr Farlow claimed the CEO was now trying to get a “golden handshake” to leave after his employment history and Labor Party links were questioned.
Mr Albanese did not respond when contacted last week, but Mayor Byrne questioned the timing of the comments which came a day after he fronted a parliamentary inquiry into the distribution of state government grants.
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