Dunedin mayor Dave Cull has been forced into a hasty apology after asking a member of the public if he was “deaf or just stupid”.
Mr Cull was addressing Port Chalmers resident Stu Debenham, who was speaking in the public forum at the start of today’s Dunedin City Council meeting.
As Mr Debenham attacked Mr Cull for taking overseas and domestic trips, including in his role as Local Government New Zealand president, Mr Cull grew frustrated.
After repeatedly asking Mr Debenham not to personalise his presentation, and being ignored, Mr Cull snapped as the verbal attacks continued.
“Mr Debenham, are you deaf or just stupid?” he asked, drawings audible gasps from the public gallery.
Mr Debenham continued, urging the council to suspend Mr Cull’s travel until rates came down, apologise to ratepayers and consider resigning.
Mr Cull interjected again, firstly to “apologise for implying you were stupid”.
He then ordered Mr Debenham to end his “repetitious, disrespectful and offensive” presentation.
“I will ask you to leave now,” he told Mr Debenham, whose mic was then cut.
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Nice to see Democracy is alive and well in Dunedin ....
If this was a chaired meeting, participants do have to follow protocol, not just carry on ranting.
Since when speaking up truth became 'disrespectful' Mr Cull. Or did we miss something and rates won't go up and all inefficient spending has been already cut or optimized?
Goodness, in comparison Mayor Cull stated outright (not merely implied) that Cr Vandervis was a liar and that is a lot worse than calling someone 'stupid'. But Mayor Cull never apologized to Cr Vandervis for that. Instead, Mayor Cull was okay with letting the ratepayers of Dunedin pay for a long (deliberately?) drawn-out attempted legal defence against a pretty clear-cut charge (IMO) of defamation to the tune of at least $30,000 and maybe double that. What is Mr Debenham's secret, that he can get an apology from Mayor Cull so easily? And apparently, unlike Cr Vandervis who had massive personal legal expenses, at no cost at all.