Woeful attendance includes valedictory speech

An outgoing Christchurch city councillor criticised for her lack of commitment to the $114,000-a-year role failed to show up to give her valedictory speech.

Riccarton ward councillor Catherine Chu, who did not seek re-election, was due to give her final speech at the council yesterday morning, but her seat remained empty – as it did for almost half of council briefings in the past three years.

Of the 17 city councillors and mayor, Chu has the worst attendance rate for briefings to June this year, though she has missed few council meetings.

Chu told The Press, via text message during the meeting, that she would have loved to join the meeting, but was told by council staff she was not able to attend the meeting via Zoom because it was a ceremonial meeting.

She said she was watching the livestream from home because she was ‘‘unwell with a bug’’, so could not have attended in person anyway.

Chu was elected on an Independent Citizens’ ticket to the city council in 2019 and was a community board member three years before that.

She has come under criticism during the term, firstly for standing as National’s candidate for Banks Peninsula just months after being elected and then for her woeful attendance at council briefings.

She has come under fire from constituents who feel under-represented, one residents’ association in her ward saying it had not seen her at a meeting for a year. Chu has not physically been at a council meeting since August 25, choosing instead to attend via Zoom. She has Zoomed in to most community board meetings since July.

Chu said last week, she had not physically been at a council meeting since August 25 because she had food poisoning and was not at the September 15 council meeting because she had a ‘‘personal family matter.’’

Her recent lack of attendance sparked rumours that she had moved to Auckland. Chu said she was ‘‘in and out’’ of Christchurch and had not completely moved to Auckland yet but emphasised she still spent most of her time in Christchurch.

She has a job in the banking and finance sector but said she was still committed to her council role until the October 8 election.

Chu said if residents wanted, she had been meeting with them, but she did not answer a question about how many meetings she had with constituents in the past month. ‘‘Since Covid, we’ve had the added flexibility of being able to Zoom in when appropriate,’’ Chu said.

She said she had not been alone in Zooming in or skipping meetings throughout the term, be it for personal reasons, sickness or otherwise.

Chu, 26, was to join retiring councillors Jimmy Chen, Anne Galloway and deputy mayor Andrew Turner and mayor Lianne Dalziel in giving a valedictory speech.

Dalziel told the meeting Chu had sent her apologies and acknowledged her service despite her absence.

Chu has not physically been at a council meeting since August 25, choosing instead to attend via Zoom.