Gold Coast City Council CEO sacked in fiery meeting

There’s always been tension between the Gold Coast councillors and its chief executive officer. But tensions finally came to a boil, leading to the controversial sacking of the city’s top bureaucrat and the mayor being hit in the face. This is the real story.

THE Gold Coast City Council has a new CEO.

Tim Baker was this week appointed as the council’s new boss, its third this year.

The Tasmanian bureaucrat will arrive in February to take up the reins from acting CEO Joe McCabe who has been in the role since April.

This year has brought the exit of Dale Dickson after his contract was not renewed. He had been in the job for 18 years.

Tim Baker.

His replacement, David Edwards, lasted just three weeks before resigning.

Mr Baker will be tasked with helping the Gold Coast prepare to co-host the 2032 Olympic Games.

It’s been a year of change after decades of stability, going back nearly 25 years.

But it wasn’t always so.

In the mid-1990s, the council underwent a dramatic shake-up when the Gold Coast and Albert Shire were amalgamated to form the modern “super council”.

Dr Douglas Daines.

A new CEO was needed to take over after an interim period led by Albert Shire’s Terry Moore.

Council ultimately chose Dr Douglas Daines, a Victorian who had been serving as the boss of Melbourne’s Docklands Authority.

His role was announced on April 15, 1995, just two weeks after amalgamation took effect.

Dr Daines would serve less than three years in the role and whose career culminated in what is today regarded as the most tense council meeting in the Gold Coast’s history.

Nothing during the reigns of mayors Tom Tate, Ron Clarke or Ray Stevens has come close to a meeting which started with cries for the council to be sacked and ended with an attempted assault on the city’s leader.

Supporters of Dr Daines in the public gallery.

It was January 1998 and tensions were growing in city hall over Dr Daines, who had proved a highly divisive figure.

A long-running feud with Mayor Gary Baildon finally came to a head in the early weeks of 1998 as the council moved to sack the chief executive.

Dr Daines became known as “Dr Death” after clashing with the development community who became frustrated over delays in project approvals.

In the last days of January 1998 councillors were summoned to the chambers at Nerang to discuss the embattled boss’s future.

Cr Baildon leaving the meeting following Dr Daines’ sacking.

Cr Baildon pushed through a motion to sack Dr Daines on the grounds that his relationship with the council had “irretrievably broken down”.

The alleged mishandling of a Freedom of Information application to the council was among the grounds councillors used to dismiss him following months of infighting over his $200,000-a-year position.

It was later revealed the vote was orchestrated by the former deputy mayor, Col Kleinschmidt and the remaining former councillors from the Albert Shire bloc who were unhappy with his leadership.

Those who voted for the sacking included councillors Daphne McDonald, Jan Grew, Alan Rickard, Paul Gamin and David Power.

The meeting was fiery.

The sacking outraged the public gallery and councillors Dawn Crichlow and Eddy Sarroff, both of whom were supporters of the ousted chief executive.

The volatile Cr Sarroff exploded and hurled his council agenda papers at Cr Baildon, hitting the mayor in the face and chest, knocking him backwards and sending pens and a glass falling from the table.

The moment Cr Sarroff hurled his agenda at Cr Baildon

“I’m Lebanese,” he shrugged after the meeting.

“I get angry. I’m still quite distressed with the happenings of today.

“But I apologised to the Mayor and I think he accepted my apology.”

Cr Sarroff went on to defend his actions.

“I was trying to say to the mayor to give us an opportunity to speak,” he said.

The moment Cr Baildon was hit in the face.

“I very clearly was saying ‘Give us an opportunity. You can’t do that, we need to put our views across about Dr Daines’.

“I grabbed my agenda and said ‘I don’t want any part of any of this agenda today’ to throw it on the floor at the feet of the Mayor.

“I think it got a bit more momentum and landed on the desk.

Cr Sarroff addressing the media following the meeting.

“I did not mean to direct it at the mayor.”

Several councillors later rebuked Cr Sarroff for his outburst saying they were tired of his fiery temperament and told him to “shape up or ship out”.

“It was totally inexcusable,” Cr Bob La Castra said.

“Regardless of whether it was or wasn’t intentional, an elected representative should exercise a little self-control.”

Dr Daines was replaced by his deputy Paul Stevens who served until 2003 when he stood down and was succeeded by Mr Dickson.

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