You can listen to the full interview with Mayor Reilly on Kiama Community Radio here.

Kiama Mayor Neil Reilly has spilled on what led to fellow Councillor Karen Renkema-Lang being censured by Kiama Council on 21 November 2023.

Speaking to Kiama Community Radio on 5 December 2023, Mayor Reilly revealed that he was the one who made the complaint about comments Councillor Renkema-Lang made during an interview with ABC Radio in June 2023, which triggered an investigation that led to her censure.

Mayor Reilly said he received three complaints from other Councillors, three from staff and four from the community claiming that “Councillor Renkema-Lang had spoken in such a way to infer that the staff weren’t doing their job,” though he wouldn’t specify exactly what was said that prompted the complaints.

“It’s not a matter of just expressing some thoughts, it’s a matter of telling people that she’s not happy with the work that staff are doing, not happy with the information that she’s getting.”

“The consequence of that is that I have young women who ask to see me, make an appointment and then it’s tears. Now, that’s happened more than once with this Councillor, it’s just this time she said it in an interview that could be recorded.”

During the interview with ABC Radio, Councillor Renkema-Lang relayed concerns from the community about the decision to reclassify the land Blue Haven Bonaira occupies from ‘community’ to ‘operational’ in order for it to be sold.

“They’re concerned that the information that was provided in some cases was incomplete or ambiguous, and in some cases misleading,” Councillor Renkema-Lang told ABC Radio. At no point during the interview did she assign blame to any particular person or group for these issues.

Some of these concerns include the title deed for Blue Haven Bonaira, which states that ancillary facilities like the Barroul House cafe must be maintained until 2027. The Federal Grant to build the aged care facility also states that these facilities must be maintained for at least five years from completion.

“When you sell to a private body, you cannot guarantee universal access to maintain broader community cohesion, those are the things that weren’t evident and disclosed in the planning proposal and were brought to light the night before the meeting,” Councillor Renkema-Lang told ABC Radio.

“There’s been, in my view, not sufficient time for the decision makers to consider that information and to acknowledge the impact that this has had on the community.”

She also raised concerns that Councillors have not received a business case they resolved to be produced in April 2022 that looks at how Council can maximise the financial revenue from all of its assets, not just Blue Haven.

Mayor Reilly said that he had done everything he could to avoid a conflict with Councillor Renkema-Lang, despite instigating the investigation that led to her being censured.

“The cost to the Council if we didn’t do it would probably be that I would be getting the subject of a Code of Conduct [breach]. I tried to avoid it, Karen dismissed that, absolutely dismissed that, and I would have thought if the head of the Council said ‘look, we can help you become the councillor that you want to be, we can help you with this’ and I think that she had the opportunity to say ‘look, that’s fine, tell me what I’ve done.”

Mayor Reilly also revealed that the investigator responsible for examining the complaints against Councillor Renkema-Lang was accused of bullying themselves and had to front the Office of Local Government as a result. “Apparently the person who did the investigation has been working for Councils for decades without any complaint,” Mayor Reilly added.

When pressed on whether the complaints spun from Councillor Karen Renkema-Lang’s request for more information on the sale of Blue Haven Bonaira, Mayor Reilly said: “More information and more information and then more information and then more information, anything other than make a decision.”

Mayor Reilly also appeared to take umbridge with the assertion that Councillor Renkema-Lang was speaking on behalf of Kiama Council.

“I don’t care what I say about this because I know that this is one example of a pattern that has been in place since the election,” said Mayor Reilly. “Karen may well charge me with some kind of speaking out of turn, but I am the Councillor who has the authority to speak on behalf of all of Council. Karen does not, she is a Councillor.”

At no point during the interview with ABC Radio did Councillor Renkema-Lang state that she represented the views of Council, and stated multiple times that she was purely expressing her own opinions.

You can listen to the full interview with ABC Radio here.

Mayor Reilly’s recent interview with Kiama Community Radio coincides with the submission of an open letter to Council by former Kiama Mayor Sandra McCarthy OAM and former Kiama Councillor Howard R Jones, claiming Council has not been granted the social licence by the community to offload Blue Haven Bonaira. 

The letter calls on Council to support a motion that suspends all action on the divestment process for Blue Haven Bonaira, claiming the process has not been transparent, has been flawed due to incorrect and changing financial statements, and that the process lacked any serious reference to historical corporate knowledge that has served as the basis for a successful model of operation for decades.

The letter also calls for Council to seek an intervention by the Minister for Local Government to independently review the entire reclassification and sale process so Councillors and the community are fully informed.

You can read the full letter here.