At Thursday\u2019s council meeting, South Waikato Mayor Gary Petley said in addition to the imposed censure, Latinovic\u2019s membership on the Local Services Committee would be suspended effective immediately.<\/p>\n
Petley also said Latinovic was no longer authorised to attend any non-council meetings on behalf of the council.<\/p>\n
This was even though the investigation into the three complaints was paused.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The pause] does not diminish the materiality of the complaints.<\/p>\n
\u201cBullying behaviour, directed towards anyone, is not acceptable within this council.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour refusal to take part in that [code of conduct] process or accept the outcome … spits in the face of what you, and all other elected members, committed to do when you were sworn in,\u201d Petley said.<\/p>\n
Despite ratepayers\u2019 outrage about the code of conduct investigation\u2019s near-$40,000 bill, Latinovic has a strong support base within South Waikato. <\/p>\n
Support for Latinovic<\/p>\n
Two days before the June council hui, the South Waikato Ratepayers and Residents Action Group (SWRRAG) held a public forum in Put\u0101ruru. <\/p>\n
The forum gave Rotorua Lakes councillor Robert Lee the chance to present a defence for Latinovic in response to the first two code of conduct complaints.<\/p>\n
Lee intended to make the presentation at this month\u2019s council meeting that eventually censured Latinovic.<\/p>\n
At that council meeting Lee was given 15 minutes to talk, but he said it was not enough to present the defence and ended up walking out.<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s presentation at the SWRRAG forum took more than an hour. <\/p>\n
One code of conduct complaint relates to an incident earlier this year when Latinovic was accused of speaking over the mayor and causing disruption.<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s defence was that Latinovic wasn\u2019t opposing the mayor, but rather he was trying to calm the crowd down so the meeting could proceed.<\/p>\n
The second complaint dealt with Latinovic accusing the chief financial officer of \u201ccreative accounting\u201d.<\/p>\n
While Latinovic admits to using the phrase, he told Local Democracy Reporting it was a question, not an accusation.<\/p>\n
Lee told Local Democracy Reporting he felt the code of conduct complaints were frivolous and should be ignored. <\/p>\n
Lee said codes of conduct weren\u2019t legally binding and often amounted to a waste of time and resources.<\/p>\n
The better alternative, Lee said, was the \u201ccourt of electoral opinion\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe community have the right to unvote him [Latinovic] in two years\u2019 time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Call for focus<\/p>\n
South Waikato Mayor Gary Petley says his council has a lot of work ahead of it. Photo \/ Libby Kirkby-McLeod, RNZ<\/p>\n
Speaking at this month\u2019s council meeting on Thursday, concerned local John Ghent told elected members he\u2019d prefer they litigate rather than investigate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we complain to the civil courts, costs are awarded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a complaint is malicious or unjustified, the complainant bears the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ghent also called for peace among the council so they could fight central government\u2019s push for amalgamation.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet councillor Latinovic recover his dignity, and allow other people theirs, then maybe we can face up to this outrageous demand from Government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Petley agreed with the need for the council to shift its focus.<\/p>\n
He also said the decisions about Latinovic had not been made lightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ongoing disruption and the continued focus on your conduct must come to an end,\u201d Petley said to Latinovic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have extremely important work to get on with, and the sideshow you constantly create can be allowed no longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will not allow these council chambers to be used as a platform for political posturing \u2013 whether by you, your representatives or your supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petley said he also noted Latinovic did not intend to partake in the further training and development the council offered him after the first two complaints.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a shame, that was designed to help you,\u201d Petley said.<\/p>\n
While Latinovic still has not publicly apologised, he told Local Democracy Reporting he wanted to make amends.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m ready to meet with the mayor and anyone else to resolve our differences [so] we can move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bronson Perich is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist for Taup\u014d and South Waikato based at the Waikato Herald.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Thursday\u2019s council meeting, South Waikato Mayor Gary Petley said in addition to the imposed censure, Latinovic\u2019s membership…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30687,1558,56883,29136,34749,5205,38290,7558,7557,61101,296,12898,241337,440,111,43,139,69,6662,158578,40182,1321,1240,1524,53033],"class_list":["post-497901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accept","tag-been","tag-booted","tag-committee","tag-conduct","tag-council","tag-councillor","tag-councils","tag-district","tag-findings","tag-into","tag-investigation","tag-latinovic","tag-local","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-off","tag-putruru","tag-refusing","tag-services","tag-south","tag-waikato","tag-zed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497901","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=497901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}