Mayor Tony Herbert should step down after he was issued with a $1652 fine for breaching stay-at-home directions during the COVID-19 pandemic, a fellow councillor says.
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It's a stance that has been backed by a former councillor while the Warrnambool Ratepayers Association has gone further and says he should get out of council altogether.
Another councillor declined to join the call for him to stand down while another said it was a decision for Cr Herbert.
Cr Herbert and three others were hit with $1652 COVID-19 fines after a picture surfaced online of them on the street outside The Whalers Hotel around 9pm on April 7, the mayor drinking a beer and his car parked the wrong way.
He has apologised and said he would stay on in the mayoral role after "inadvertently" breaching the new laws which aim to keep people safe.
"Warrnambool has been good to me and I want to continue to give back. I look forward to contributing to the community as mayor," Cr Herbert said.
"I had believed my actions to engage with business owners as part of my mayoral role was within the bounds of the law."
Cr Sue Cassidy said Cr Herbert's actions had brought the council into disrepute, and he should step down as mayor but stay on as a councillor.
Laws have been broken and the community aren't happy.
- Cr Sue Cassidy
"Laws have been broken and the community aren't happy," Cr Cassidy said.
"He's put council into disrepute. It's gone national.
"It was talked about everywhere."
Cr Cassidy said there had been no meetings or councillor-only discussions to work out how to move forward as a council in light of the mayor's actions.
"It's not just the reputation of the mayor but the reputation of us councillors is not good as well," she said.
"It puts us all under the bus.
"I wonder how we do move forward with this?"
She said she had to wait too long for him to ring and she felt she had been "thrown out there" to answer media questions about his actions.
"I know he thinks he has done nothing wrong but he has put us into disrepute as a council. He's not even on a code of conduct," she said.
She questioned whether he had breached the council code of conduct, but Cr Herbert said he hadn't.
"It's quite simple and out there what is expected of us at the moment," she said.
"I just want to make the stance that I don't agree with it and if I don't do something like this, people are going to say 'she's one of the sheep, she's just saying it's OK'.
"It's not OK as far as I'm concerned. He's tarnished our reputations, all of us as councillors."
Cr Cassidy said that while she thought he should step down as mayor, she didn't believe he had to resign as a councillor.
"It is a numbers game. We can't afford to have someone else leave at this time," she said.
Cr Cassidy said she understood Cr Herbert's heart was in the right spot and he was trying to be helpful but "we are in the middle of a pandemic and you have to be so careful".
Despite legally being able to keep her hair salon open, she chose to shut down because she didn't want to send mixed messages to the community.
"My salon can't be open because I think it looks bad as a councillor," she said.
Cr Robert Anderson said he had hoped the mayor would have called a councillor-only meeting to talk about the issue.
As for whether he should step down, Cr Anderson said that should be decided at a councillor-only meeting.
"He needs to put his case on the line to councillors. We're the ones that are affected by it," he said.
He said he was disappointed he didn't hear from the mayor sooner than he did.
Cr Kylie Gaston said she would not join the call to ask for him to stand down, and to her knowledge no councillor had called a meeting to discuss the issue.
"He absolutely did the wrong thing. He's certainly coping a hefty fine and is now a public example of what happens if you do break social distancing rules," she said.
Cr Peter Sycopoulis said the process had only just run its course and councillors hadn't had a chance to meet or discuss it yet.
"The decision to stand aside lays entirely with Tony," he said.
Former councillor Peter Hulin said Cr Herbert's actions had brought the officer of mayor into disrepute.
"After this you can't just turn around and say I learnt from my mistakes and I realised I did something wrong," he said.
"His actions destroy any confidence anybody could have had in his leadership.
"Other politicians who have made these appalling decisions have done the right thing and resigned.
"We've been lucky so far.... but all it needs are people to be lax on the restrictions and we'll have a massive problem here as well. It's no fair on our community. If the mayor doesn't show the leadership, where the hell are we going to be?"
Mr Hulin said the excuse of talking to business was "appalling" because he'd not heard from anyone at the council about things it might be doing to help businesses in the city.
He said he was shocked by Cr David Owen's response to the issue who had described the incident as an "overreaction".
The Warrnambool Ratepayers Association released a statement saying it was reluctantly calling on the mayor to stand down immediately in order to limit the damage to council's reputation due to his disregard of COVID-19 laws.
Association president Brian Kelson said Cr Herbert had brought the council into disrepute through his actions.
"How can Warrnambool take their leaders seriously when they blatantly flaunt the rules?" he said.
"Warrnambool deserves better leadership in these unprecedented times. If a senior state minister must resign for flaunting the COVID law, why is it any different for our local council officials?"
NSW Arts Minister Don Harwin resigned last week after being found in breach of current COVID measures.
Victorian Ratepayers Association president Dean Hurlston said he was incredibly disappointed in Cr Herbert's decisions.
"This is incredibly poor form," he said.
"I live in a COVID-19 hotspot and because of actions like this, we see the spread.
"I do like Tony but I believe the only option he has now is to stand down to protect the reputation of the council."
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Cr Herbert said he put out a statement to councillors on Good Friday letting them know what had had happened.
"Quite honestly I was in shock for 24 hours," he said.
He said he had spoken to his fellow councillors and had tried to call Cr Cassidy a number of times.
"The councillors have expressed disappointment with this issue, there's no doubt," he said.
"They understood my intention. My intention put me in a situation of breach but unfortunately I didn't give that enough thought at the time.
"I've made a mistake. Just because I'm mayor should I be perfect? I'm not. I made a mistake and I'm deeply sorry for it.
"We've had half a dozen phone calls to the police about what we can do and what we can't do in the last couple of days.
"Depending on who you get it's a different answer. It's really tough at the moment."
But Cr Herbert said the incident had strengthened his resolve to do a better job.
He called on people to look out for each other and care for each other through the tough times and to take into account the mental health of others.
"That's what I was trying to do down there," he said.
Whalers Hotel Warrnambool owner Susie Porter clarified that her business was not involved.
"It had nothing to do with us, we'd already closed that night," she said.
"We know those involved were terribly sorry but it didn't look good, it was careless for society and for Warrnambool.
"I don't think they meant any harm by it but it does look bad, really bad."
The incident happened just hours after Cr Herbert issued a warning to the community to "step up" self-isolation measures in a video posted on the council Facebook page.
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