Councillors take PJ mayor to task for unacceptable action during meeting

PETALING JAYA: The city councilors and state assembly person are taking the Petaling Jaya mayor Datuk Mohd Azizi Mohd Zain (pix) to task for his unacceptable action of ejecting two city councilors from the monthly Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) full board meeting as well as removing the meeting video from the council's website or archive.
Damansara Utama assemblywomen Yeo Bee Yin mentioned that Mohd Azizi's action on Monday contradicts the state government's policy of being a transparent government.
"Never before for the past five years that in the state assembly have we had any videos removed from the archive nor did the speaker eject any of the state assemblyperson from an ongoing assembly.
"Hence, what the mayor (Mohd Azizi) did is in violation of the state government policy," a disappointed Yeo said during a press conference at the iconic A&W fast food restaurant located at Lorong Sultan this morning.
Yeo reminded Mohd Azizi that as a mayor appointed by the state, he has the responsibility to practice transparency as required by the state.
Yeo felt that disciplinary action should be taken against the mayor so that it would serve as a lesson to all Selangor local councils that no live streaming or videos should be removed from their respective website.
"I would like to call upon MBPJ to have the video back up so that the public can see it for themselves how the meeting was conducted and make their own judgment, otherwise it would mean they have something to hide," Yeo said.
Meanwhile, Bukit Gasing assemblymen R. Rajiv said that he was deeply disappointed with how the meeting transpired as what the councilors tried to do yesterday was merely question the plot ratio awarded to KUB Malaysia Sdn Bhd for their proposed development project on the A&W land.
"All of us have no issue with the approval given by MBPJ to KUB for their construction of the office tower considering it was owned by KUB themselves, but we felt that the plot ratio awarded must be in accordance to the city council's own guideline that was approved and in practice by all developers since 2016," Rajiv said, adding that the councilors did nothing wrong by raising questions during yesterday's meeting and requested for the decision to be reviewed and changed.
Rajiv then revealed that there were few things which happened yesterday which should not have happened in the first place, among them the mayor's refusal to grant the councilors the opportunity to carry out a vote procedure on the plot ratio decision, the mayor's refusal to review the decision as well as asking the reporters covering the full board meeting to leave the meeting room before the meeting concluded.
"Never before they have asked for reporters to leave the room or requested them to delete any of their recordings.
"What's worse is having the council's auxiliary police 'remove' the councilors who were questioning about the plot ratio which to me was totally unnecessary and unjustifiable whereas no action was taken against the councilor who hit the table loudly during the meeting," he added.
Rajiv also revealed that Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali and Selangor Local Government, New Village Development and Legalising of Factories Committee chairman Ean Yong Hian Wah have been notified and briefed about the incident.
"While waiting for a decision from the Mentri Besar over the matter, all the DAP electoral representatives have agreed to undersign a letter which will be submitted to him," he said.
Rajiv stressed that most of the DAP and PKR councilors are firm that no developers should be given any special allowance as it would set a wrong precedent.