Wyndham councillor Mia Shaw will once again don the mayoral robes after holding off a challenge from Cr Peter Maynard.
Seven of the eleven councillors voted in favour of Cr Shaw, which resulted in her being immediately instated as the mayor for 2024-25.
Thanking her family and the community, Cr Shaw said she was “a little lost for words” and that “It’s great to be back in the chair”.
Cr Shaw, who was mayor in 2018-19, said she wanted to work co-operatively with the entire council.
“I look forward to working with all councillors,” she said.
The battle for deputy mayor was a more contested affair with three councillors bidding for the position: Larry Zhao, Josh Gilligan and Susan McIntyre accepted nominations.
Cr Gilligan prevailed to take the position for a second consecutive term.
Describing Wyndham’s future as having “infinite potential,” outgoing mayor Jennie Barrera said the opening of Ironbark Fields, the opening of two new community centres, the promotion of tourism and community engagement efforts were the things she was most proud of during her tenure as mayor.
“I’m proud of the work that was done and what was achieved,” she said.
The first issue discussed by the new council was the time of meetings, with debate ensuing over whether or not the start times for meetings should be pushed back an hour to 7pm.
Cr Robert Szatkowski raised the suggestion of council adopting an amendment to move to a 7pm start time to ensure residents who work full-time and commute from the CBD are able to attend.
Cr Barrera was one of those who spoke in support of the status quo, citing community members and staff who had children as a reason to maintain the 6pm start time.
“We don’t want to have barriers,” she said.
In support of the amendment, Cr Jasmine Hill said “community is ultimately our employer”.
Asking the other councillors and chief executive if they had received any requests from the public to change the starting time, Cr Gilligan said, “it wasn’t even raised during my election campaign”.
The amendment was lost.
Council will next meet on Tuesday, February 25, 2025.
