WAKOOL Shire Mayor Neil Gorey will serve on in the role for the third consecutive year after comfortably surviving a challenge from Councillor Anthony Jackson in this week’s mayoral election.
Council members convened in Barham on Wednesday for a special meeting to decide who will serve as Wakool Shire Mayor and Deputy Mayor for the next 12 months.
As expected, Cr Jackson contested the election after last month resigning from his role as Deputy Mayor, citing an inability to continue working under Cr Gorey who he perceived to have abused his power.
At the time, Cr Jackson raised concerns about the independence of the council’s three female representatives, however refused to go into detail about what he meant by the claims.
Cr Gorey won the election four votes to one, receiving the backing of the three female councillors — only Cr Jackson voted for himself as Cr Colin Membrey, considered an ally of Cr Jackson, was absent from the meeting.
The Mayor said it was good to get the continued support of the other councillors, and the community as well.
He said that the past month had been tough on him, but dismissed any notion of a conflict of interest in council.
“For a person in my position, I never discuss leadership with the councillors apart from day to day activities, so I really left it up to the other councillors to make their choice and demonstrated their democratic rights,” Cr Gorey said.
“Obviously I’m very happy with their decision but other than that I’ve had no discussions with them.”
Cr Membrey contested the position of Deputy Mayor, however lost the vote to Murray Downs representative Cr Ann Crowe by the same margin as Cr Jackson.
Cr Crowe was stoked with the new position and said it was important for ratepayers to see that they had some representation from different locations.
“It’s very important for Murray Downs and Koraleigh and Tooleybuc to have representation,” Cr Crowe said.
“Sometimes we can feel a little bit out of the loop because we’ve got such a heavy representation in Barham with three councillors from there.”
