Greg Matthews called it the week council would like to put behind it.
It may well be that by the next council elections, this could be the council Dubbo would like to put behind it.
In his weekly column in the Daily Liberal yesterday, Cr Matthews took aim at the coverage of the vote regarding Cr Peter Bartley’s confidentiality breach, and the ensuing stories that came after that initial story.
Since it was largely the Liberal that covered the breach, and open discussion and vote to censure Cr Bartley, it’s clear he was having a shot at the newspaper.
The mayor’s column is a free column, offered to him to spruik council news, and was put into place after he requested it.
The coverage was fair and balanced. Of that, there is no doubt. Every person had their chance to have their say. Cr Matthews was not part of the second story - which dealt with Cr Bartley’s feelings - because he chose not to be.
The mayor himself made the complaint about Cr Bartley’s breach, if indeed it was a breach.
Personally, I don’t believe it was. The email was not marked confidential, other than the usual disclaimer at the bottom of any email that comes from council - which includes all council press releases sent to the media specifically to run. Presumably, we’re supposed to break that confidentiality notice.
Plus, the correspondence was not an orange paper - the usual way confidential papers are marked for councillors.
In his column, the mayor simply breathed life into an issue that had finished its natural news cycle. Cycles often run over a week; especially this story since it emerged on a Tuesday. By the end the weekend, we’ve all usually moved on.
Not the mayor.
He raised it again, taking aim at the only thing left to complain about - how the Liberal covered it. And despite his pledge to try to unite his colleagues last week in this newspaper, yesterday he implied that councillors who voted against the censure had previously raised concerns over the breach.
“Given the level of concern raised at the time, it is disappointing that there were dissenting votes at the recent council meeting,” he wrote in yesterday’s column.
That’s hardly working toward unity - that’s accusing councillors of saying one thing and voting differently.
The incredible thing is the Daily Liberal had more information relating to Cr Bartley’s defence of his alleged breach than the councillors themselves, who had to vote on whether to censure him.
When Cr Allan Smith successfully moved a motion to have the issue heard in open council - which was the right way to hear it - it meant Cr Bartley wasn’t around to defend himself.
Cr Matthews later said he believed the code of conduct outcome against Cr Bartley had been used as “an opportunity to paint division in council,” and make him - the mayor - look like a “bully”.
How else was it going to look? The mayor chose to go after his former deputy mayor, the man he switched sides on at the last mayoral election, when he sided with his former political enemy, Cr Smith, to hold onto the mayoral chains.
Cr Matthews chose a minor infringement to embarrass and hound a former ally.
On a larger scale, this is all utterly unimportant - and simply takes away from the fact that council is trying to pass a draft management plan that seeks to raise its debt level to about $76 million by 2013.
Possibly that’s a better issue for council to consider, rather than which emails should or should not be forwarded on.
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