Ryde City’s chief executive and two senior staff have been placed on leave pending an investigation after a last-minute cabinet meeting that lasted more than four hours.
The council’s chief executive Wayne Rylands, deputy chief executive Michael Galderisi and administration boss Graham Humphreys were suspended from receiving payments from the council, according to several sources familiar with the situation. The investigation is ongoing, but there are no allegations of wrongdoing.
The decision to put the workers on leave was made in surprising circumstances. Councilors were called to the meeting without knowing what would be discussed. There was only one item on the agenda, listed as confidential. Councilor Penny Pederson, before the meeting went into secret session, said: “Mr. Mayor, we don’t know what it is.”
Document metadata shows the agenda was created at 9am on Monday, revised two hours later, and uploaded to the council’s website at 3.30pm – three hours before the meeting.
Rylands has been on the council since 2018 and has led the organization since 2022. He has been replaced on an interim basis by John Angilley, a former executive director at the City of Parramatta who started at Ryde as director of business services in October last year. He declined to comment.
In an email sent on Tuesday, Josh Hatten, director of the mayor’s office and chief executive, told councilors Rylands had “started a period of absence”.
Rylands, Galderisi and Humphreys did not respond to requests for comment. In the automated response received after Herald When emailed with questions, Rylands wrote that he would be “out of the office temporarily” and referred all matters to his assistant.
A similar email from Humphreys said he is “currently on vacation and unable to review and respond to emails and phone calls”.
A follow-up email from Galderisi revealed that he was placed on leave from Monday and would return to work on April 6.
Nine councilors attended in person at council chambers in Ryde, and four – Kathy Tracey, Felix Lo, Tina Kordrostami, and Roy Maggio – were absent. Kordrostami and Maggio were prevented from attending via audio and video link. Neither the chief executive nor two senior staff members were present. None of the 13 councilors responded Herald’s call on Wednesday.
The meeting was in secret session, a procedure that prohibits councilors from discussing matters outside the hall, between 6:30 and 10:50 pm. The meeting closed a minute later, without a resolution being read or information about what was discussed.
The code of conduct for council meetings requires resolutions passed during closed meetings to be made public “as soon as possible after the meeting, or the relevant part of the meeting has ended” and that the resolution be recorded in the public records of the meeting. No meeting minutes have yet been published.
Anthony Segaert is the Parramatta bureau chief at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously an urban affairs reporter.Connect through X or email address.
Cindy Yin is an urban affairs reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect through email address.
