Mayor Andy Foster has appointed Sarah Owen as his new chief of staff, who was the executive manager in former Christchurch mayor Bob Parker's office. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Mayor Andy Foster has appointed Sarah Owen as his new chief of staff, who was the executive manager in former Christchurch mayor Bob Parker's office. Photo / Mark Mitchell
ANALYSIS:
Last week local news media were unfairly criticised for not tuning into Wellington City Council meetings, this week they've been denied access to a pre-meeting they are usually able to attend.
Mayor Andy Foster's relationship with the media is becoming increasingly strained, a situation which has not been helped by recent comments from his deputy mayor Sarah Free.
It appears Wellington City Council is having a tough time finding someone to bridge the gap between Foster and the media.
The council first advertised the role of public affairs adviser to the mayor in November last year, although an experienced contractor has filled the position during this time until very recently joining the Ministry of Health as a senior adviser.
The role in the mayor's office has been advertised on more than one occasion and recruitment agencies have shoulder-tapped several individuals, only to draw a blank.
However, it's understood an appointment could be imminent with the arrival of Foster's new chief of staff, Sarah Owen.
Owen was the executive manager in former Christchurch mayor Sir Bob Parker's office, starting in the role a month before the February 2011 earthquake.
More recently, she has been employed as systems design manager at the Department of Conservation, and as a private secretary in the Beehive working on conservation policy.
Owen is set to start in the new role shortly, just as Foster's fraught relationship with the media is being aired.
A full Wellington City Council meeting was held via Zoom last Thursday. Photo / Screenshot
The mayor has previously faced criticism for his lack of leadership over Wellington's water woes, and now increasingly his ability to manage relationships with his own councillors.
Elected members themselves are divided over whether the council is problematically divided, but it appears it was problem enough for Foster to call in a facilitator for help.
In the meantime, his deputy mayor's public crack at the media has done little to assist in repairing the council's image.
More than three hours into a council meeting last Thursday Free said: "Sometimes I wish the Dom Post could actually come online and see how we actually interact and see the engagement with everybody."
She was followed by councillor Sean Rush who echoed her comments: "It would be great if our iconic Dominion Post would get with the programme and start supporting Wellington … I'm guessing they probably might have gone back online by now."
Both Dominion Post and New Zealand Herald journalists had watched the entirety of the three-and-a-half hour long meeting by that point, and later filed news articles on decisions the council had made.
Free said on Twitter that night she didn't know journalists were sitting through council meetings held via Zoom admitting, "we have no way of knowing who's in the audience".
Deputy mayor Sarah Free admitted on Twitter after the council meeting she had no way of knowing who was actually watching council meetings. Photo / Mark Mitchell
During alert levels 3 and 4, full council meetings are held via Zoom, livestreamed and subsequently posted on YouTube, but pre-meetings have not been made public.
These meetings are usually held on a Tuesday ahead of Strategy and Policy Committee meetings, which the media have always had access to.
But when a media request landed yesterday morning asking to join the meeting, Foster denied access.
Foster has not responded to a request for comment.
Following the decision, councillor Iona Pannett sent an email to all councillors and the council's chief executive pointing out media have been able to access pre-briefings for decades.
"The fact that we are doing pre-briefings by Zoom should not change that fact."
She said councillor Fleur Fitzsimons had raised the issue some weeks ago of the need for media to be invited to pre-meetings.
"Can we please resolve this? It isn't the best look when we are trying to deal with a crisis. Transparency is important", Pannett said.
Our Council pre-meetings were open to public pre Covid and they should be now. There are more people watching and discussing our online Council meetings and we should encourage this!
Local Government gets a couple of journalists for some councils, if that.
The media industry has shrunk to such an extent in recent times that there are councils across the country which may have forgotten what a reporter looks like.
But those who are making decisions with hundreds-of-millions-of dollars' worth of other people's money should welcome transparency and face up to scrutiny.
