Ian Pottinger called the mayor's answer a "soliloquy". Tom Campbell called his behaviour "rude". Another Tuesday, another clash at Invercargill City Council.
The six-term councillor clashed with Mayor Campbell during a full council meeting on Tuesday — the third time Pottinger has butted heads with a meeting chairperson in recent months. This time it came during a round of questions to council manager Rhiannon Suter about amalgamation, when Campbell stepped in to answer on her behalf.
Pottinger wasn't impressed. "You jumped in and gave a soliloquy, sorry," he told the mayor.
Campbell pushed back, visibly frustrated. "When you start talking about soliloquies, there was no soliloquy. I expressed about two sentences. So why don't you just ask a question, but ask it politely?" he said, adding that Pottinger could "sit there and be rude, or . . . take part in this meeting in an appropriate manner".
Suter did eventually answer Pottinger's question, though she acknowledged she wasn't entirely sure she'd understood it.
It's the third time this year Pottinger has found himself in a sharp exchange with whoever's in the chair. In February, he refused to apologise to Cr Alex Crackett after asking whether she was listening during a meeting she was chairing. In May, he had a tense back-and-forth with Cr Darren Ludlow after suggesting Ludlow hadn't received an email that "democracy was not in place today".
Pottinger, speaking on Wednesday, said he had simply been trying to get an answer from Suter when he was interrupted. On his pattern of clashes more broadly, he made no apologies. He said he was a passionate person who did a lot of research and was not the kind to back down.
Mayor Campbell took a cooler view after the fact, describing Tuesday's incident as relatively minor and dealt with at the time.