COUNCILLOR Bill Moar has his sights set on tackling major projects after being elected unopposed as Swan Hill council’s new mayor on Tuesday.
Cr Moar said he would focus on a new hospital, the Swan Hill bridge, the Robinvale housing situation, labour and water.
Cr Moar said the decision to step up to the mayoral role was a process of learning the ropes and establishing himself within council as a councillor.
“It is a short year, so it was just time,” he told The Guardian.
The newly-elected mayor said there was a large number of priorities to work on in the municipality.
“What you find on council is that you have to have a lot of balls in the air, and eventually something comes into fruition,” he said.
“So, there’s no one thing that’s got top priority, like there’s the bridge, there’s the hospital, there’s our housing issues to deal with in Robinvale, and there’s the labour force issues.
“You’re working away at them all at every stage that you can, every chance you get for advocacy.”
He said one thing could be priority one day, then change to something else the next.
“Like the water issue, if it doesn’t rain in the next six months, we could be in a diabolical situation with the water supply,” Cr Moar said.
“Both quality and quantity, in a security sense and in the quality of the river.
“We’re trying to be ahead of the curve in a lot of our advocacy and we’re trying to prevent any disasters from happening, along those lines.”
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Cr Moar was first elected onto council in 2016.
He said council had to constantly advocate to the appropriate authority to push their point of view on how things should be managed.
Cr Moar said he had been out of the public eye for a while, and had since gone into retirement.
He has been part of many community and industry bodies including Victorian Farmers Federation, Grains Research and Development Corporation, school boards and Mallee Research Station.
Cr Moar is also council’s representative for Loddon Mallee Waste and Resource Recovery Group.
Following the election, Cr Moar chaired the remainder of the meeting, which he said he felt “fairly nervous” doing.
Deputy mayor Chris Jeffery told The Guardian he was interested in the supporting role “for a while”.
“People seeing that I’ve got aspirations for leadership, not just in official, but I’ll do to lead the people in the community,” he said.
“Being involved in council, I just want to support Bill (Moar) to be the best man that he can be.”
Cr Jeffery said the decision to run for council again next year would depend on family and his children.
“We’ll see how the cards roll out,” he said.
Cr Jeffery said his priority leading into his first year as deputy mayor was to support Cr Moar, and council, while keeping the rates low for ratepayers.
