Trawling through Council Agendas looking for news is a mind-numbing experience. However, just occasionally you find a nugget of gold that makes all of the panning worthwhile.
With the retirement of long-term and well-respected Mayor, Dr Graham Bury, Kingborough is being asked to elect a new Mayor from a current field of four incumbent councillors.
Regular monitors of affairs at the Kingborough Council may have noted that documents relating to one apparent candidate, Cr David Grace, were buried inside the Agenda for the 22nd September meeting of Council.
The document included in the Agenda at (about) page 104 is a letter from Tasmania Police Acting Assistant Adam Stanwix regarding an incident that led to the resignation of a Police member of Council’s Road Safety Committee (which Cr Grace chairs).
It is alleged in the letter that a member of Tasmania Police, Sergeant Kerry Turfrey (who also sat on the Road Safety Committee until his resignation), attended a disturbance at Cr Grace’s residence. Upon arrival, Cr Grace introduced himself as “Councillor Grace, Chair of the Road Safety Committee” with him apparently not recognising Sergeant Turfrey despite having regularly sat on the same committee.
The letter then goes on to allege that Cr Grace abused Sergeant Turfrey with indecent language and “invited him to leave the premises.” Sergeant Turfrey subsequently resigned from the committee because of the incident.
Residents of Kingborough in the upcoming election have a right to question why this incident about an apparent Mayoral candidate has not been reported more widely. This is an especially important question when the incident has been placed on the public record after it was put on the open agenda for a Council meeting.
Link to the Agenda:
( http://kingborough.tas.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Agenda%20No.%2013%20%2022nd%20September%202014%20(public%20copy).pdf )
All about Cr Grace, from Kingborough Council website:
http://www.kingborough.tas.gov.au/page.aspx?u=512&t=uList&ulistId=0&c=293&print=1
