AN outspoken councillor and critic of Gawler Mayor Karen Redman and council chief executive officer Henry Inat could be removed from the chamber for missing three meetings in a row.

At council’s ordinary meeting last night – held after The Bunyip’s print deadline – elected members debated whether to expel councillor Ian Tooley after he missed three consecutive meetings between January and March this year.

A clause in the Local Government Act gives elected members the option of removing a councillor if they miss three-straight meetings without having a motion to grant leave of absence approved.

The act does not require Cr Tooley to be removed, with his peers holding the power to either expel the outspoken councillor, ask for a for a further statement or simply do nothing.

Council staff recommended elected members note the discretion and take no further action.

Speaking to The Bunyip, Cr Tooley said he missed the January meeting because he travelled to Melbourne to watch the Australian Open tennis “at short notice” and submitted an apology to council, before submitting another apology in February due to illness.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, Cr Tooley decided to put himself in self-quarantine with his wife, who is immuno-compromised, to avoid bringing the disease into his home.

He informed council staff of the reasons for his non-attendance at the March meeting, before he was advised by Ms Redman that he faced removal from council if he failed to have a leave motion approved for the next meeting.

In emails viewed by The Bunyip, Cr Tooley outlined his situation to other elected members, but when councillor Diane Fraser moved a leave motion at the meeting, no seconder was found and it failed.

Cr Tooley said the situation was a “kick in the guts”.

“Here’s the administration having the full flexibility not to proceed with it knowing the circumstances, even though I wasn’t granted leave of absence,” he said.

“They could say ‘look at the world we’re in. We’re in this COVID-19 pandemic, Ian has to self-isolate, and we don’t know why those councillors didn’t grant him leave’.

“But here we have the leadership, the mayor and the CEO, deciding deliberately to put it on the agenda.”

Cr Tooley has been an outspoken opponent of Ms Redman and Mr Inat since he was elected in 2014 and was censured by the chamber in November after not delivering an apology for a breach of council’s code of conduct.

“This is just a vile attempt to persecute me and get me off the council,” Cr Tooley said.

“I understand people might not warm to me because I don’t play the party line. I aggressively pursue issues I believe need to be pursued and I do it out of the interest of serving the community.

“There will be nine people in that meeting and I know I have five, possibly six members that hate my guts.”

Ms Redman, on behalf of the council, declined to answer whether an elected member had ever been removed in similar circumstances or if councillors had seen leave motions denied in the past until after council made a decision on Cr Tooley’s future.