COUNCILLOR Alex Christian is adamant he has not breached council policies, saying on Thursday that he disagreed with the findings that led to a resolution to formally censure him.
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Two code of conduct complaints, lodged by councillor Jess Jennings and resident Sandy Bathgate, were discussed during the confidential session of Bathurst Regional Council's meeting on Wednesday night.
Having considered the investigation report from the independent reviewer into allegations from Mr Bathgate, council will formally censure Cr Christian under Section 440G of the Local Government Act.
He will receive a letter advising him of the censure and the reasons for it.
Although disagreeing with the findings, Cr Christian told the Western Advocate that he would accept the decision.
"I don't agree with the findings, however, I accept the umpire's decision," he said.
"Frankly, I'm more worried about fighting to get NSW BreastScreen open again and focusing on issues that concern the community than worrying about this sort of stuff.
"I'd like to thank everyone in the community for their continued support in dealing with this matter, it's been overwhelming."
In announcing the decision, council's general manager David Sherley said the reasons for the censure included that Cr Christian allowed three untrue statements, posted by a user named Robert Throng, to remain on his public Facebook page for at least two weeks.
All three comments were posted to the page on March 26, 2021.
The first of the comments said: "We must all ask ourselves how Sandy Bathgate was able to find the real Anika Van de Bosch account. He was utterly obsessed with her and found out she was an 18-year-old heavy drug user x soft porn model."
The other two comments posted by Robert Throng alluded to the Anika Van de Bosch account and falsely claimed Mr Bathgate was "looking at" and "interested in" soft porn.
Mr Bathgate's code of conduct complaint also referred to an image Cr Christian posted on his Facebook page on March 11, 2021 from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
The image depicted tanks labelled "dithering", "censorship", "anti-business" and "political correctness" facing an individual labelled as Cr Christian, who was referred to as "the silent majority's voice".
The image was deemed "violent" and "offensive", and "suggests that others in Bathurst, particularly other councillors, to whom it clearly is directed, amongst others, used violent means against Cr Christian".
Cr Christian was found to have breached four clauses of the social media policy, and three clauses in the code of conduct, being 3.1 (a, b, e, and g), 3.8, and 3.10 (a, b, c, and g).
These breaches largely relate to bullying.
Regarding the code of conduct complaint from Cr Jennings, council resolved to defer any further consideration of the matter pending a supplementary report from the investigator.
The report would address the receipt of additional information from the chairman of two council meetings this year, and others who were in attendance.
The Western Advocate understands that Wednesday night's meeting, which took nearly four hours from start to finish, became quite heated at times as councillors debated the two code of conduct complaints.
A source close to council said the meeting was "the worst I've ever seen in council".
Cr Christian was given the opportunity to make representations to the council, but had to leave the room before the debate started.
Cr Jennings was able to participate in discussion of Mr Bathgate's code of conduct complaint, but could not be present when his own complaint was discussed.
There has been animosity between the two councillors for some time, and the source close to council said it was disappointing it had turned into a code of conduct complaint that had to be brought to council for determination.
"It was the same old stuff that's been going on for two years and it just came to a bit of a head [Wednesday] night," they said.
"... It was just a continuation of schoolyard bullying, their egos, everyone's egos."
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