His reasoning for deferring the meeting's proceedings is absolute nonsense and demonstrates that he has no competence to properly fulfil his role as mayor.

The Mayor's rationale per the Express article was: "I deferred the matter because in our code of practice anyone can call a vote as long as there are two councillors speaking for it and two speaking against it, and we only had one councillor speak against it."

On a quick review of the ARC Code of Meeting Practice there is nowhere, and I mean nowhere that requires every motion to have two speakers for and two speakers against.

So what is the Mayor on about? And why hasn't The Express fact checked this claim?

The Mayor has clearly failed to fulfil his duty under the Code of Meeting Practice rule 10.5 to put any lawful motion to the meeting, and from reports he has unlawfully closed/adjourned the meeting as no formal vote was put to close/adjourn the meeting - the Mayor apparently just walked out with no business having been dealt with.

His actions are either made on the basis of negligence or they are calculated - either way he should step down.