Michael Broughton had an item on last night’s council meeting agenda in which he called out fellow councillors by name.
His item was entitled “Removal of Agenda items by Councillors McLaughlin, Abbott and Cunliffe: Matters of timely importance to the community have been repeatedly removed from the agenda since July 2, 2025.” According to him this defeats transparency.
What he wanted was “That all Council desist from removing duly requested items for discussion, information, questions, resolutions or review from Council Open and Closed agendas.”
Most items on Broughton’s list had already been addressed, others were matters he wished to bring back for discussion. The Code of Conduct says this:
Members will consider the issues before them and make recommendations and decisions as a collective body… but once a recommendation or decision has been made, all Members will recognize the democratic majority, ideally acknowledging its rationale, when articulating their opinions on a recommendation or decision.
Last night Broughton’s outdated item was rightly voted off the night’s agenda.
A recent agenda item from Ken Berry similarly called out working councillors by name for what he called absenteeism when they were not available during office hours for unscheduled meetings. It was removed and an updated agenda was published before the meeting.
Berry-Broughton acolytes have used both instances to advance their false narrative on social media.
Aside from the questionable nature of both Berry-Broughton items, how did they make it onto agendas at all?
What can be gathered from recent meetings is that submissions from other councillors have been rejected by Berry-Blackwell for inclusion on agendas. Any member of council may submit topics for inclusion but the CAO and chair/mayor are ultimately responsibility for agendas.
