Glenelg Shire Council to elect mayor on November 8

Glenelg Shire Council's mayoral election will go ahead next month following the appointment of an acting CEO.

Glenelg Shire Council corporate services director David Hol has filled the position, the council announced on October 26.

It comes after councillors urgently voted to postpone its annual statutory meeting on November 1 after the resignation of its chief executive officer, Paul Phelan, who has taken indefinite leave until he finishes up with the role in January 2024.

Councillors voted on October 24 to change the date to November 8.

The council on Thursday said the appointment of Mr Hol would enable the meeting, which will include the election of mayor and deputy mayor, to take place.

EARLIER, October 25:

Glenelg Shire councillors have urgently voted to postpone their looming mayoral election after realising they don't have the personnel to elect a new mayor.

Cr Karen Stephens proposed an "urgent business" motion at the end of the monthly council meeting on October 24, 2023, to give councillors the option of postponing the election by a week.

"The motion is: If required, council in accordance with section 2.2.1(3) of the governance rules... amend the date of the statutory meeting (to elect the mayor) to 8 November, 2023 to enable the chief executive officer to be present to chair the election of the mayor under section 25 (3) of the Local Government Act 2020," Cr Stephens said.

Council meetings are generally run by the mayor, but the mayor isn't allowed to chair the meeting to select their successor; only the council CEO can do it. Glenelg Shire CEO Paul Phelan tendered his resignation on October 17 and while he technically remains in the role until January 2024, he has taken indefinite leave.

If a CEO knows they are going to take extended leave, they are required to sign an "instrument of delegation" to appoint an acting CEO. The Standard understands Mr Phelan attempted to delegate his role, but none of the council staff qualified to fill in for him would take on the job.

Mayor Scott Martin said the situation had left the council scrambling for a temporary chief.

"The CEO has given his 12 weeks' notice and is on leave. Normally one of the exec staff would step up but at this stage they've all refused," Cr Martin said.

"Whether you read anything into that, I don't know."

The Standard understands there is a significant rift within the councillor group, based partly on the way some councillors have treated council staff.

"My role is to find an acting CEO," Cr Martin said.

"That may turn into an interim CEO while council goes into the process of finding a permanent replacement."

He said finding someone to step into the role on short notice would be difficult.

"The motion last night was very vague about the CEO because we really don't know whether we will be able to find someone within a few business days. There's a raft of issues to deal with," he said.

The CEO of a council is appointed and employed by the councillors and the process of finding a new one normally takes several months.

The council only had four councillors at its October meeting after Cr Gilbert Wilson was a late withdrawal. Crs Jayden Smith and Chrissy Hawker resigned last week with Cr Smith citing the poor behaviour and ethics of some of his colleagues. If the council can't field at least four councillors - known as a "quorum" - when it convenes for the mayoral vote, the vote won't be able to proceed regardless of whether they've appointed an acting CEO.

Cr Martin said "anything can happen", but he thought there would be enough councillors for a vote, whenever the election happened to occur.

"I'm confident we'll have a quorum," he said.

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