Was there a councillor walkout before Clarence Valley Council voted on the Mayoral Minute concerning early renewal of the General Manager's contract?

This Twitter exchange between the Clarence Valley mayor and no_filter_Yamba occurred on 18 February 2015. It relates to Clarence Valley Council’s ordinary monthly meeting of 17 February.

At the time of posting the mayor still had not answered that last question.

I strongly suspect that it was not answered because it was less than the nine elected councillors attending that monthly meeting who actually went into the Committee of the Whole and voted behind closed doors for renewal of the general manager’s five year contract.

Based on the open debate concerning the resolution to close part of the meeting to the public, I calculate that only seven of the nine councillors voted in closed session.

In other words, there was a walkout by two councillors who appeared to want to disassociate themselves from this early contract renewal.

Clearly councillors’ differing opinions of the actions of the mayor did not create the consensus implied in the mayor’s tweets.

Background

SATURDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2015

Is Clarence Valley Council's general manager trying to inoculate himself against any regime change at the 10 September 2016 local government election?