The general manager of Meander Valley Council is preventing two ratepayers from entering any council-owned premises, including the council chambers, entertainment venues and even public toilets.

He also put them on notice they were at risk of being fined several thousand dollars.

John Jordan sent letters to Meander Valley Gazette journalist Sharon Webb and Westbury resident Peter Wileman advising them that if they do not sign documents pleading guilty to behaving badly at council meetings, they are ‘not permitted to enter or remain on council premises’.

Mr Jordan advised Ms Webb that she is a ‘risk to the health and wellbeing of councillors and staff’.

He wrote, ‘You have now engaged in two separate and flagrant breaches of regulation 14 of the Local Government (Meeting Procedures) Regulations 2015, the maximum penalty for which is 10 penalty units (currently $1730) per offence.’

This reference for Mr Jordan’s accusations is unclear.

Regulation 14 states, ‘A meeting is to be open to the public unless closed under regulation 15’. It appears to bear no relation to Mr Jordan’s letter.

Both ratepayers deny Mr Jordan’s accusations.

‘Mr Wileman is a vigorous anti-prison campaigner and I’m a journalist reporting on events in my local community.

‘So many council staff and councillors have left Meander Valley Council in the past 18 months it’s getting hard to keep track of them all. Three councillors resigning in one term must be some sort of Tasmanian record. I wonder if there will be more?’

Ms Webb said Mr Jordan’s and Cllr Johnston’s exclusion of her from council meetings was the latest development in a deteriorating relationship between the council and the Gazette. She said their threats are aimed at preventing her from reporting on the council.

Ms Webb said Mr Jordan should prove his accusations are true.

‘If I had disrupted the meeting to this degree, the police ought to have been called to remove me and impose the threatened fine. The fact that they weren’t speaks for itself. A smear campaign seems preferable to the truth’.