Allan Birchfield. Photo: Greymouth Star / Brendon McMahon
Disgraced West Coast Regional Councillor Allan Birchfield is unrepentant after being disciplined for code of conduct breaches.
In a statement issued following a closed door extraordinary council meeting, chairman Peter Haddock said Birchfield was being stripped of his right to access privileged council information in-committee.
However, he also noted they could not remove Birchfield from the council as he had been democratically elected, as per the provisions of the Local Government Act.
For his part, Birchfield said after the meeting he believed he had nothing to say sorry for.
"I don't accept the findings of the investigation. I have done nothing wrong, nor will I be making any apologies - or changing my behaviour."
After seeing out the ordinary open meetings on Tuesday, he simply went back to work at his goldmine.
Stepping aside from the council was not on the horizon, Birchfield said.
"You won't knock me out of there."
The five-term councillor - who was into his second term as chairman after being returned last October - was one of the top-polling candidates before being sacked from the chair in March, after murky circumstances began to unfold last December.
He suddenly went on leave for 'health reasons'.
But internal ructions were clear. These included the ongoing sore of Birchfield's gold dredge on the council's balance sheet, and an increasingly dysfunctional relationship between governance and management.
Prior to a formal petition in March, signed by all councillors, to have him removed as chairperson, it was revealed Birchfield had not been speaking to acting chairman Haddock and the former chief executive Heather Mabin for months.
The meeting on Tuesday covered two code of conduct complaints, one brought by Birchfield himself in May and the other by Remuneration and Employment Committee chairman Frank Dooley.
Dooley complained about a leak early in the year of information to media about the employment of the former CEO.
In turn, Birchfield alleged an assault by Dooley during an all-council panel convened to interview candidates to find a replacement CEO.
Independent inquiries commissioned by the council into both complaints, found Birchfield's assault allegation was not upheld, while Dooley's allegation was upheld "on the balance of probabilities".
In October the newly sworn in West Coast Regional Council with chief executive Heather Mabin, front centre, and with Crs Peter Haddock, back second from left, and Allan Birchfield back, second from right. Photo: Greymouth Star/ Brendon McMahon
As a result, Birchfield is now excluded from all confidential sections of council meetings. He was also ordered to apologise.
Birchfield told the Greymouth Star that as an elected councillor he was not convinced of the basis for being excluded from parts of the meetings.
"It says I'm being excluded from all council committees. I don't think that's legal. That goes back to the argument when Frank tried to exclude me (in May) from the Remuneration and Employment Committee," Birchfield said.
However, he decided to go quietly yesterday as the ordinary council meeting moved to in-committee, "rather than have a scene".
He said the question of the alleged assault with Dooley was yet to be resolved in his mind, and he had laid a complaint with the police.
He also maintained that he had no involvement in the alleged leak of employment information to Newsroom relating to the CEO: "I didn't provide the information to the writer that did that - it wasn't me."
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.
