Harassment allegation, lump sum payment, and the resignation

In a March 17 email Nobby Clark stated they were finalising the disciplinary process and it would include a serious warning letter and ongoing monitoring of Skelt. A month later Skelt resigned.

Former ILT Stadium Southland general manager Nigel Skelt.

Invercargill City Councillor Nigel Skelt was the subject of a harassment complaint prior to his sudden departure as ILT Stadium Southland’s general manager last month.

The stadium board released a statement last month saying Skelt had resigned from the role on ‘medical grounds’ and for ‘personal reasons’.

Skelt was in the stadium role for over 20 years and was the highest polling Invercargill city councillor at the October, 2022 election.

Correspondence released to The Tribune by the Invercargill City Council on Monday, has revealed Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark had been working with a third party in regard to a complaint made about Skelt in his role at the stadium.

In a February 17 letter, after a female employee resigned from the stadium, she alleged she had been sexually harassed.

She stated she was unsettled when Skelt was talking about jelly wrestling and made comments such as “you’d look good naked doing that” and that she was “a beach and bikini type girl”.

She also claimed when Skelt was telling a story about pickpocketing, Skelt rubbed up against her arm.

On top of his role as mayor, Clark is also a trustee on the Southland Indoor Leisure Centre Charitable Trust board which owns the stadium.

In a February 24 email from Clark to a person, whose name has been redacted in the correspondence released, Clark said he had authority from stadium board chair Alan Dennis to provide an offer to the former stadium employee.

That offer included the prospect of $3000 lump sum to cover the cost of lost income, payment to cover counselling, potential redeployment at the stadium, or a possible job with the Invercargill Licensing Trust.

Skelt hasn’t responded to The Tribune’s attempts to contact him.

Clark declined to comment when asked by The Tribune about the correspondence. He was also asked where the money for the $3000 lump sum had come from, and why he was the person that dealt with such a complaint.

Clark said he needed to be careful with what he said, with all questions now needing to go to the interim board chair Hayden Rankin who has now replaced Alan Dennis.

Dennis was the board chair but has stood aside while an external independent review is carried out as to how the matter was handled.

The Tribune also asked the mayor if Skelt intended to remain as a city councillor.

“He’s currently an apology for a couple of weeks and having some time out. Until he comes back and I have a discussion with him, I don’t know where his future lies.

“He certainly hasn’t told me he is not coming back [to council].”

Following Skelt’s successful election as the highest-polling councillor in October Clark handed him the role of “lead councillor” on the new museum build project.

Meanwhile, Invercargill Licensing Trust chief executive Chris Ramsay confirmed he was approached by Clark about the prospect of a job offer for the former stadium employee. That job prospect with the ILT was part of the stadium’s offer which also included the $3000 lump sum.

Ramsay said he told Clark that ILT was on the lookout for more staff, but the person would need to follow the same process as anyone wanting a job at the ILT.

“The only comment that we made at the time was; ‘Absolutely we’ll look at anyone on their merits’. We never at any point were going to just hand out a job.”

The ILT is both a major funder of the stadium and has a commercial naming rights partnership with the stadium.

Ramsay said they had been made aware of the harassment allegation when correspondence that should have been sent to stadium officials was instead sent to the ILT.

“That’s the extent of what I know.”

“The situation has been discussed at board level with the limited knowledge we have. There is not enough [information] there to make any judgment, whether it be the funding or commercial naming rights. Like any funder we are keeping a watching eye on it, just to make sure there are no issues we should be concerned about.”

Stadium Southland has two boards. One looks after the operations side of the stadium, while the Southland Indoor Leisure Centre Charitable Trust, which owns the venue, largely looks after the funding component.

The ILT has representation on both of the boards.

Dennis previously represented the ILT but has now been replaced by Sheree Carey on the charitable trust board.

ILT’s sales and marketing manager Angee Shand sits on the stadium’s management board.

“Like any board, particularly the operational one, they’ve been bound by all forms of confidentiality, and we respect that, and they have maintained that,” Ramsay said.

In a March 17 email, Clark told the person that they were finalising the disciplinary process for Skelt and it would include a serious warning letter and ongoing monitoring of Skelt at the stadium.

Skelt’s resignation from the stadium was announced a month later. While he remains as a city councillor he has been absent from recent meetings.