Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark will be taking a month off work after councillors voted to censure him following a code of conduct complaint.
In a statement released this afternoon, Clark said: “Having spent some time over the weekend considering the impact of the Code of Conduct on me, Karen and our family, and the wider community, I’ve decided to take a further month off work.
“With reflection, I came back to work too early after open heart surgery.”
The mayor underwent open heart surgery in January after suffering a heart attack.
In the statement, he said council approved a leave of absence for three months to recover, but he decided to return to his duties after two.
“I feel I should use the remaining month to refresh and look more positively to my role as Mayor,” he said.
Deputy Mayor Tom Campbell will fill in for Clark in the interim.
At an extraordinary meeting on Friday, a motion was put forward to formally ask Clark to resign.
He refused to resign, and the motion was narrowly defeated. Councillors did vote to censure him, and he will be asked to step back from public appearances.
The embattled mayor has been asked to step back from public speaking duties for the rest of his term. (Source: 1News)
The mayor's behaviour has made headlines over the past year or so and is at the centre of several controversies.
The most recent complaint was over comments he was alleged to have made at a United Fire Brigades' Association (UFBA) event.
Included in the allegations were claims he called volunteer firefighters second-class citizens, verbally attacked the MC, and disparaged young people in authority.
Clark apologised for his behaviour and blamed it on "brain fade" following his surgery.
An earlier complaint came after he used the N-word multiple times in an interview with Guy Williams for the satirical news show New Zealand Today. In the interview, Clark claimed to dislike the word but repeated it multiple times.
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