LEGAL advice to Redland City Council has found two of Mayor Jos Mitchell’s recent directions to the chief executive officer Louise Rusan inconsistent with an earlier Council resolution.
In correspondence obtained by this publication, Council’s legal team said it had sought advice on the lawfulness of three Mayoral Directions issued under section 170 of the Local Government Act 2009.
The directions were sent by the mayor after Council voted on September 17 to amend the organisation’s executive leadership structure and realign several service functions (resolution 2025/265).
The legal advice concluded that two of the directions — which sought to delay implementation of the new Executive Leadership Team structure and the realignment of service functions within the Organisational Services department — were inconsistent with Council’s resolution and therefore could not be actioned.
“The attached resolutions dated 17 September 2025 explicitly reference the Council report, which includes a section detailing risks associated with delay,” the legal email said.
It also noted that the mayor’s directions would have required the CEO to appoint employees to maintain the existing structure, a matter outside the scope of mayoral directions under the Act.
Council’s legal team confirmed it would not be implementing directions one and two and that those entries would be closed out in the Mayoral Directions register on the councillor portal.
The third direction, relating to a separate resolution (2025/33), will continue to be progressed by the CEO and recorded under the Act.
Sources told this publication the mayor had attempted to use her position to prevent the CEO from enacting an authorised restructure of management roles intended to reduce Council costs — including a proposal to leave five vacant senior positions unfilled.
Those sources said the mayor subsequently stepped back after the legal advice was received.
An internal oversight complaint is understood to have been lodged with the OIA over the mayor’s intervention.
The exchange follows wider tensions at the Council over two concurrent reviews aimed at improving efficiency: a CEO-led reorganisation and an independent whole-of-organisation review commissioned by the mayor earlier this year.
Supporters of the mayor’s review say it was intended to provide an independent assessment of how resources are used; critics have questioned its timing and cost.
Division 9 Councillor Jason Colley said the two processes were separate but complementary, and that the CEO’s restructure affected only a small number of teams.
Finance portfolio Cr Wendy Boglary described the mayor’s review as a genuine effort to find savings amid growing financial pressures, while Division 3 Councillor Paul Gollè emphasised the CEO’s statutory authority to manage organisational structure.
A Redland City Council spokesperson said the council reserves the right to consider structural changes to ensure services and costs are well managed, and that staff and unions are being consulted.
