Councillor vows to fight 'witch hunt' over booze email

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The city councillor facing the boot from a council committee for allegedly breaching policy is ready to fight.

Hamilton councillor Ewan Wilson's future on the statutory management committee will today be placed in the hands of his elected colleagues as they are asked to vote over a restructure that would see him removed from the committee.

The committee's chairman, John Gower, led the move to reduce the number of committee members from seven to six after revelations that Mr Wilson had emailed an applicant about a liquor licensing decision. In the email Mr Wilson said he disagreed with his colleagues who decided not to grant the application.

But Mr Wilson said it was an "orchestrated witch hunt" and he was entitled to give his opinion because the applicant, Altitude bar owner Laurie Weake, had already told staff and councillors the application had been withdrawn. Only later did Mr Weake decide to appeal against the decision to the Liquor Licensing Authority.

"I'm going to fight it in the sense I don't think all of council have been circulated with the series of emails which shows I only communicated with the applicant once. And once they have that context, I've done nothing wrong."

Mr Gower, who is leading the motion, said he was ready to put his case forward and had plenty of support. He did not want to give his reasons until the meeting but said it was not personal. "If I never thought I had the support of my committee I wouldn't have gone this far."

The notice of motion was signed by the chairman and five other committee members.

However, councillors Martin Gallagher, Dave Macpherson and Angela O'Leary, who are not members of the committee, said there needed to be a very good reason to strike off a councillor.

Mr Gallagher said: That's a very serious step. To remove any councillor from any committee requires in my view a high threshold."

Of the other non-committee members, councillor Peter Bos would not comment on whether he would even be voting, Hamilton Deputy Mayor Gordon Chesterman was waiting to hear both sides of the argument and Mayor Julie Hardaker could not be reached for comment.