The extraordinary council meeting to elect the deputy will be held at 12.45pm on Tuesday, March 17.<\/p>\n
One who has come out publicly against McGrath\u2019s \u201creckless\u201d leadership is former deputy mayor Sally Crown, who McGrath stood down from the role in late February.<\/p>\n
She had refused his initial request to resign and instead stated he should undergo leadership training for what she called \u201cad-hoc\u201d and \u201cchaotic\u201d decision-making. <\/p>\n
She was considering a judicial review of the decision, depending on advice she received regarding the potential cost to ratepayers. <\/p>\n
Within days of the blow-up, McGrath had appointed newly elected councillor Roger Brownlie as his next deputy. <\/p>\n
After the meeting on Tuesday, McGrath issued a statement saying he had listened to concerns some of the councillors had about his recent decisions, including his appointment of Brownlie, who has been in the role less than two weeks. <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to acknowledge and apologise for any hurt or harm my decisions may have caused Councillor Crown or Deputy Mayor Brownlie,\u201d McGrath said in the statement. <\/p>\n
Crown told Hawke\u2019s Bay Today the meeting was a constructive way to foster understanding among elected members. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about Roger personally,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a well-respected colleague. The conversation is about governance and making sure the structure works well for the whole team and the city we serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident that everyone around the table genuinely wants what is best for Napier and our community.\u201d <\/p>\n
She said the decision of who should be Deputy Mayor should have sound process and appropriate transparency behind it. <\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t be making myself available for the role of Deputy Mayor, given recent events,\u201d Crown said. <\/p>\n
She said she was committed to serving in her role as an Ahuriri ward councillor and in the other positions she has been appointed to. <\/p>\n
\u201cAny decision about the Deputy Mayor will be made by a vote of elected members and I support this approach.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hawke\u2019s Bay Today sought comment from Brownlie on the situation and his plans. <\/p>\n
He said he was \u201cunable to comment\u201d at this time. <\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The extraordinary council meeting to elect the deputy will be held at 12.45pm on Tuesday, March 17. One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,1863,26519,33092,4527,3112,10934,3607,111,43,139,69,13084,153608,205,312,174667,223,61,28355,5905,4524,1533],"class_list":["post-323630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-back","tag-councillors","tag-deputy","tag-doesnt","tag-job","tag-mayor","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prepare","tag-regain","tag-role","tag-says","tag-stooddown","tag-the","tag-to","tag-trying","tag-vote","tag-want","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}