Gore District Council has closed the book on a code of conduct complaint against a councillor who called a staff presentation "gay", with most of her colleagues agreeing the whole thing should never have gone this far.
Councillor Donna Bruce made the comment to councillor Robert McKenzie during a workshop in April. McKenzie filed a formal complaint. An independent investigator from Anderson Lloyd, James Cowan, found Bruce had breached the code of conduct but concluded the incident was neither significant nor serious — a one-off — and recommended she apologise.
At Tuesday's meeting, Bruce did exactly that, saying she was sorry if any staff were offended. McKenzie was absent.
Councillors voted to accept the findings, then debated whether any further consequence was warranted. The answer, in short, was no.
Councillor Mel Cupit moved to close the matter without further action and didn't hold back on what she thought of the process.
"Like the other two code of conducts we've had in recent times, I believe this one's also been a storm in a teacup. I know it's caused a lot of stress, wasted time, energy, money and distracted from the far more important work we should be focused on," Cupit said.
"I do know councillor Bruce is 100 percent keen to move on positively from this. My thoughts are that it should never have been a code of conduct issue, it should have been a discussion between adults at the time it allegedly happened."
Councillor Jeremy McPhail was brief. "I think we've just got to move on," he said.
Bruce used the meeting to push for broader reform of how the council handles complaints. "While I accept the code of conduct complaints have an important place, I struggle to see how the time, cost and public attention devoted to this matter are proportionate to the findings that it was neither significant nor serious," she said.
"I'd like to suggest that we look to become early adopters of the new LGNZ standardised Code of Conduct that is set to come into play in a few months, so that in the future we have the processes in place so that minor issues like this can be dealt with in-house before escalation."
Bruce also noted a separate complaint had been made against her regarding communications with staff. That investigation was dismissed, with the investigator finding her communications were polite and professional.
Cowan's report also recommended voluntary mediation between Bruce and McKenzie to address what appears to be an ongoing tension between them. Cupit and councillor Nicky Coats said they want to know exactly how much the Anderson Lloyd investigations have cost ratepayers.