Months of bitter feuding at City Hall can today be laid bare by The Royal Gazette — thanks to whistleblower Graeme Outerbridge.

The former Corporation of Hamilton Councillor has handed over a dossier of evidence showing how Mayor Sutherland Madeiros has twice been forced by members to reverse decisions — and the subsequent potential cost to taxpayers.

Mr. Outerbridge came forward with the dossier before last month's by-election in which he unsuccessfully ran to regain his Common Councillor seat.

The documents suggest that the rift which led rebel members to call for the Mayor's resignation shortly after he was elected in late 2006 was never healed.

Those divisions led members to force the Mayor to withdraw a contract awarded to one of his friends because they had not approved it.

That decision means the publicly funded Corporation now faces a legal battle which could cost up to $100,000.

Mr. Madeiros also angered members over the Mayor's Commission — a wide-ranging review of the City conducted by volunteers who put in hours of their own time.

According to the dossier, Aldermen and Common Councillors pulled the plug on the project after the Corporation had already paid out more than $40,000 to a consultant.

The final report has never been officially made public, although Mr. Madeiros insisted this week that it would eventually be published if he had anything to do with it.

Government is already considering how to modernise the Corporation, whose members are voted in by just a few hundred people and which holds all its meetings in secret and does not release minutes. Its reputation has been tainted this year by infighting and it has lost a number of senior staff, three Councillors and an Alderman.

Mr. Outerbridge said people needed to be made aware of what was happening at City Hall and that it was impossible to have accountability without transparency.

"This is the whole problem of it being a closed process," he said. "You never get the truth. If the process was transparent — and there is no reason for it not to be transparent — you wouldn't get this kind of nonsense going on."

The dossier contains restricted minutes showing how elected members appear unable to reach agreement, spending meetings locked in arguments.

The correspondence in the bundle includes a letter sent to the Mayor and all members in February from former Secretary Kelly Miller, whose departure from the Corporation last month remains shrouded in mystery.

She alleged that Mr. Madeiros "has spent the majority of his time creating division between members and between staff" — a claim he strongly refutes.

Also contained in the dossier is an interim report from Corporation auditors KPMG showing that they investigated concerns raised by the finance committee.

Mr. Outerbridge, who resigned from the Corporation after former Alderman Bill Black questioned his eligibility to serve, said: "I have had the courage to take this step because I can't just sit any more and be quiet and also be a victim of the process of score settling. I have nothing to gain by this."

He said the documents exposed the Mayor's "damn the torpedoes" attitude towards the democratic process and the "completely chaotic dysfunction" it caused at City Hall.

"It's just saying: 'I don't care that I have to work in a democratic process. This is what I want. I understand the process but choose to defy it'."

Mr. Outerbridge added that as recently as May there was still a "poisonous atmosphere" at City Hall. Since then, three new Councillors have been elected onto the municipality and a new Secretary has been appointed for six months while the Corporation analyses its management structure.

Mr. Madeiros denied overriding members but told this newspaper he had found it difficult to get consensus since his election.

He said the municipality was in a good financial position despite the divisions and that he was positive the arrival of the new members and new Secretary would help the Corporation.

Meanwhile, in a separate interview with The Royal Gazette, former City Engineer Ian Hind has spoken about why he left City Hall, claiming the Corporation is the "most awful environment to work in".