Shellharbour Council will recruit for a new CEO. Photo: Shellharbour City Council.
Shellharbour City councillors voted to terminate the employment of CEO Mike Archer during a scheduled closed-door extraordinary meeting on Tuesday night (12 August).
It followed council’s 25 February meeting, where, in an urgent extraordinary meeting closed to the public, councillors received “a verbal report on personal matters” that led to leave being granted for Mr Archer.
SafeWork NSW later confirmed it was investigating allegations regarding Mr Archer’s interactions with a female staffer at a Christmas party.
Agenda items for Tuesday’s confidential meeting included “confidential Mayoral Minutes: personal matters concerning certain individuals (other than councillors)” and a “confidential report: information provided to councillors concerning personal matters concerning certain individuals (other than councillors)”.
After an hour-long closed session, a five-point motion was shared in open council, which included “council terminates the contract of employment of Mr Mike Archer, CEO, pursuant to subclause 10.3.5 of the contract of employment”.
“Such termination is effective from when Mr Archer receives written notice that his contract of employment has been terminated,” it read.
It advised that as soon as practicable, Mayor Chris Homer will inform Mr Archer in writing that his contract of employment was terminated with immediate effect.
Discussions are also to remain confidential due to relating to personnel matters.
As per the recommendations, council appointed Wayde Peterson to continue in the acting CEO role until recruitment of a CEO was finalised, with council to delegate all functions, delegations and subdelegations given to the CEO to him until then.
A final recommendation was for the selection panel for a new CEO to be made up of Mayor Homer, Deputy Mayor Kellie Marsh, Cr Moira Hamilton and Cr Kane Murphy.
Council will delegate authority to the selection and recruitment panel to undertake a recruitment process, including the appointment of a recruitment consultant to assist.
Cr Lou Stefanovski was absent from the meeting, due to previously approved leave, with seven of the remaining eight councillors passing the motion.
Cr Rob Petreski chose to abstain, later releasing a statement saying “after such a long, costly, and complex process, it would have been beneficial for councillors to have more time to work through the information together, ask questions, and build consensus”.
