Lismore Mayor Steve Krieg survived a motion of no confidence put forward by Councillor (Cr) Adam Guise at last night's Lismore City Council monthly meeting.

In a meeting that was described as a 'circus' by many on social media, there was a lengthy debate on whether the motion was 'urgent' which it needs to be if councillors are to vote on the outcome because the motion was not in the published business papers.

Cr Guise and Cr Rob were interpreting 9.3 and 9.4 of the Code of Meeting Practice which allows Cr Guise as the mover of the motion to speak towards the motion. However, advice from the Governance Officer and the Office of Local Government delivered through General Manager John Walker said that first the urgency of the matter should be decided before the motion could be voted on.

The Governance Officer Christine Cotterill said, "What happened in the past has not necessarily been in line with the code of meeting practice."

As the words 'point of order' were constantly used and the debate on procedure ticked past 14 minutes and the ruling was in Mayor Krieg's hands, he finally said, "I am ruling that I'm happy for the motion to continue Cr Guise. That is my ruling."

Cr Guise then thanked the Mayor for making the ruling and proceeded to talk about their roles as representative councillors speaking on behalf of the community.

"If all you want to do is give away your leadership to an autocratic leader and have us act that goes completely against our role as councillors. It goes completely against you being elected on the platform of 'be the change' and it flies in the face of the crisis our community faces in their time of need."

"And I've come to this point, because in the past on 60 minutes you said we need a benevolent dictator, here it is a reference to a single unilateral person that's not us, not the elected councillors, not the governing body that's meant to represent our community."

Cr Guise spoke about LCC going into administration as a loss of democracy and a loss of voice for this community.

As Cr Guise was the only person that could speak to the motion under the code of meeting practice, only his voice and opinions were heard.

The vote was put to the floor with Crs Ekins, Cook, Rob and Guise in favour and Crs Gordon, Colby, Hall, Jensen, Bing and Krieg so the motion was defeated leaving the Mayor to not have to rule on its urgency.

Steve Krieg is still the Mayor of Lismore as the debate continues over whether Lismore City Council should be put into administration or not, the same debate that has been happening for a number of years.