Jaidyn Kennedy
Heather Marcus has failed in her bid to be re-elected to Wyndham council, bringing to an end her almost two-decade stint as a councillors.
Ms Marcus lost to fellow incumbent councillor Mia Shaw in Werribee Park Ward, with Ms Shaw receiving 59.89 per cent of the vote after preferences.
Ms Marcus had served on council for 19 years.
“It’s a shock, but the book is now closed and we’ve already started plans of where we go from here,” Ms Marcus said.
“The people in this city have been wonderful to me.”
Ms Marcus congratulated the incoming councillors and stated her desire to continue working closely with council in the coming years.
“I think we’ve got a lot of challenges, and I believe that the biggest issue is the congestion and the condition of the roads,” she said.
Incumbent councillor Josh Gilligan held off challenges from two former mayors in Kim McAliney and Henry Barlow en-route to securing re-election in Wimba Ward.
In Featherbrook Ward, incumbent councillor Jasmine Hill beat former councillor Tony Hooper. Ms Hill was the subject of a misconduct hearing during the previous term of council.
Incumbent mayor Jennie Barrera was comfortably re-elected in Heathdale Ward, while fellow incumbents Robert Szatkowski and Susan McIntyre were re-elected in Brinbeal Ward and Cheetham Ward respectively.
Adele Hegedich narrowly missed out on re-election in Wyndham’s most populous ward, conceding the Williams Landing Ward to Larry Zhao. Sahana Ramesh also fall short of re-election.
Incumbent Peter Maynard went relatively unchallenged in Quandong Ward, winning over 58 per cent of first preference votes, well ahead of the next closest at 13 per cent.
Bemin Ward, which was the largest in terms of candidates with a total of 15 and notably contained no incumbents, was won by Preet Singh.
Shannon McGuire defeated nine other candidates, including the incumbent Marcel Mahfoud, to take Grange Ward.
Iramoo Ward was claimed by Maria King.
