A regional Western Australia councillor says long COVID, IT issues and hitting a kangaroo have forced her to miss or be late to nearly all of this year's council meetings.
The City of Albany's ordinary council minutes show councillor Delma Baesjou has missed three meetings this year and has either clocked in late or left early for five others.
Cr Baesjou, who ran for the Nationals WA at the 2021 state election, will pocket more than $32,000 of ratepayer money for her services.
She asked at last week's council meeting to take a week of leave in December but her fellow councillors voted to reject the application.
There was no discussion of the motion at the meeting.
Early last month the ABC tried to ask Cr Baesjou about her performance on the council but she asked that the interview be postponed due to illness.
Cr Baesjou then did not return any messages, calls or emails for several weeks.
After last week's council meeting, Cr Baesjou revealed why her attendance had been lacking.
She said she was 31 minutes late to last week's meeting because she had some mechanical issues.
"I'd hit a kangaroo and my car wasn't operating properly," Cr Baesjou said.
She said she had long COVID and had to Zoom into a number of meetings.
"I haven't been feeling well and I've been symptomatic … it's health reasons at the moment," she said.
Councillor unaware she was late
Cr Baesjou said she was "not aware" that she had logged in late to any meetings despite the minutes showing that she was 20 minutes late to the February meeting and 10 minutes late to the March meeting.
There were also meetings where she left and did not return via Zoom.
"My laptop did go flat," she said.
"I do my obligation, I feel I am representing to the best of my ability at my moment, as I said, I'm really quite sick and I've had to take some leave."
Cr Baesjou said she was "considering all my options" when asked about her future as a councillor.
