![Kiama councillors Kathy Rice (left) and Jodi Keast have been referred to ICAC over disclosures of conflict of interest. Cr Rice said she was comfortable with her decision and not concerned about the ICAC findings. Kiama councillors Kathy Rice (left) and Jodi Keast have been referred to ICAC over disclosures of conflict of interest. Cr Rice said she was comfortable with her decision and not concerned about the ICAC findings.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/4FavSveeQdYEHssZq5umRQ/4f7a54e0-4594-4451-8e2b-a3b0ab6af943.jpg/r0_0_2395_1347_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Kiama's two Greens councillors have been referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption over declarations of conflict of interest over a matter involving a candidate on their election ticket.
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A few weeks after being informed of the referral Cr Kathy Rice and Jodi Keast made the decision not to run in the September elections - though Cr Rice said the two events were not linked.
Cr Rice also said she wasn't worried about the outcome of any ICAC probe because people in the Kiama Greens did not know each other's business.
The issue stemmed from a long-running dispute between Kiama Greens member Ken Sandy and his opposition to a farm across the road from his home proposing to build an abbatoir on-site.
During a recent Land and Environment Court hearing on the matter, Kiama Council lawyers received a document that included an email Mr Sandy sent to his legal representative in 2021 outlining tactics to "impede" the abattoir development application until after the council elections that year.
This, he wrote, would happen by asking for further information from the Health Department, Environment Protection Authority and other government bodies "with a view to the applicant blowing a gasket".
In the email Mr Sandy stated he was working with the Kiama Greens "to ensure we have a progressive council that are more likely to reject an abattoir DA, while the current council as you know will support it. We need to delay for two more council meetings - September and October".
At the time of this campaign, Mr Sandy was also running on the Kiama Greens ticket for the council elections - effectively hoping to be part of the council he felt would reject the application.
At the court hearing, the council's lawyer told the court of the need to refer this document to ICAC "for the purpose of compliance with the first respondent's [council's] investigation reporting and disclosure obligations".
The council has since made that referral, though that does not imply any guilt or innocence - any decision on the issue will be made by ICAC.
The heart of the issue with the referral relates to Cr Rice and Cr Keast's declaration of any potential conflict of interest.
The development application came before the council on September 2022, where Mr Sandy addressed councillors during the public forum.
At the start of the meeting, both councillors made a declaration that they both knew Mr Sandy and they "communicate regularly" but both chose to vote on the matter.
The outcome of that vote was that the application was unanimously rejected.
On May 27 this year, the councillors were made aware of the issue and, on June 21, both Greens councillors announced they would not be standing in the September elections.
Cr Rice, who had served on council for more than a decade, said that decision had nothing to do with the ICAC referral.
"Twelve years is enough, a board would turn over at eight," Cr Rice said.
"I had never dreamed of being a councillor - it just happened at the time. Twelve years - I need to retire. I need my own life back."
As leader of the Greens ticket in 2011, Cr Rice said she had no idea of Mr Sandy's plans - it wasn't something they would have talked about as candidates.
"The reason he was on the ticket was because he was a member of the Greens," she said.
"But beyond that we weren't close friends."
Cr Rice said she wasn't intimately involved in the development application process Mr Sandy was contesting.
"Not everything gets shared between everybody just because you're in the same political party," she said.
Cr Rice wasn't concerned about any possible findings ICAC might come back with.
"I'm not worried about it at all because it's implying that everybody knows everything about everyone, what everyone is doing in their own personal situation and that's not the way that the relationship between people in the Kiama Greens were.
"So I'm quite happy to say that I declared an interest and I wasn't up to my neck in that case with Ken."
Cr Jodi Keast was also contacted for comment.