QLDC councillor Niki Gladding has described a split between elected members and both the mayor and CEO, where the two sides don't meet or talk.
In the latest episode of the Crux podcast Councillor Gladding details how mayor Glyn Lewers has told elected members that they are "on their own" and effectively declared that he is not their leader.
"A turning point for councillors was when we realised what's been happening for the last year and a half. We realised it's up to us to figure out how we operate as a council without a leader."
Councillor Gladding also told Crux that the Queenstown Lakes District Council senior managers have engineered a culture where community consultation is a box ticking exercise that "does not comply with the letter or the intent of the Local Government Act."
She says that the managers - the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) - are obsessive "almost at any cost" about delivering projects that are linked to the CBD Masterplan that Arrowtown consultants Rationale produced.
"We've got a lot of lawyers and a lot of planners in our community. There's a lot of smart people out there who can see that something is not quite right about this. And of course, it's really starting to hit in terms of rates, we've obviously hit our debt limits now there's no money to do other things."
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