Two themes were prominent at a protest outside the council this week.
One was support for embattled Gore Mayor Ben Bell (24).
The other was "the CEO has got to go".
Mr Parry is directly accountable to the council, not the public, but this does not make him immune to pressures connected to a petition calling for his resignation and media scrutiny of the council’s culture.
Newsroom painted a compelling picture of a workplace that has left a lot to be desired in the past 20 years.
Allegations in the article about some past employees getting picked on were not strongly challenged by the council, although it did paint its own picture of staff being quite happy in recent times.
The breakdown in the relationship between the council chief executive and the mayor has been well canvassed.
Who is this chief executive who has got the backs up of apparently thousands of people?
It is worth going back a little further.
Mr Parry defeated formidable Te Kuiti lawyer Wally Bain for the Waitomo district mayoralty in 1998.
He was in his 30s at the time and was mostly well liked, but could also hold his own in any argument.
When a section of the Waitomo Caves community manoeuvred to join neighbouring Ōtorohanga district, he warned the plotters they were playing with fire.
Not too long later, he was able to pivot, dispense some fuel and light the match himself by proposing the Waitomo and Ōtorohanga districts merge.
It did not end up happening, but Mr Parry no doubt achieved whatever his intended ends were.
He was on track to secure re-election in Waitomo, had he sought this.
Instead, Mr Parry left for Gore in 2001 to become that council’s chief executive.
Mr Parry had his critics in Waitomo, but few people there would dispute he was a good get for Gore.
The capability shown by him in Waitomo is a strange match with his reported comments on television about his recent experiences in Gore.
Mr Parry said he was dazed.
We are apparently expected to believe the election of a fresh-faced 23-year-old caused all sorts of trauma.
It looks a lot like Mr Parry has been running with a "poor me" routine and much of the community is not having it.
On the face of it, any fight between a rookie mayor in his 20s and a capable former mayor who morphs into a veteran chief executive is not going to be a fair one.
Yet, Mr Bell showed this week he could play, as they say in sports. It helps, of course, when public sentiment is what it is and a few calm outsiders call for cool heads.
This week’s extraordinary meeting was not directly about Mr Parry, but he is affected by the results.
The festival of peace and harmony on display at the council meeting puts Mr Parry in an interesting position.
In the short term, he will need to at least make it look as if he intends to be constructive.
It is understandable if Mr Parry was initially taken aback that Mr Bell was wary of accepting his advice.
It is also understandable if Mr Parry got used to the methods of six-term mayor Tracy Hicks and then found the new mayor’s approach less to his liking.
The coded presentation by some people of Mr Bell as an upstart seeking revenge for the council’s treatment of his mother, and as a man who does not listen and whose conduct has been poor or well outside the norms for someone wearing the mayoral chains, is a viable narrative.
But it has not been backed up.
Much of this narrative has also been disputed by the mayor.
Mr Bell is at least entitled to the benefit of the doubt and much of the community demands he be given a fair go.
Mr Parry is now more or less obliged to be seen to be allowing this.
Any presentation of Mr Bell as being impossible to work with now looks difficult to sustain.
Mr Parry is smart enough to know he might have to adjust the way he has framed the matter, assuming he intends to present himself as still being up to the demands of his job.
If the council is able to maintain some collegiality among its elected members, including the mayor, Mr Parry cannot afford to exude incompatibility.
He is faced with getting with the programme or getting out.
