Susanna Freymark
Your elected councillors for Kyogle Council have been declared by the NSW Electoral Commission.
The council will include Tom Cooper, John Burley, Rob Cullen, Brett McNamara, Kieran Somerville, Olivia Taylor, Janet Wilson, Danielle Mulholland and Robin Harley.
These councillors will elect a mayor at the first council meeting this month.
This process of electing a mayor by councillors will remain as the referendum showed a clear decision by voters in favour of keeping this method with more than 62% of you voting no to changing to a popularly elected mayor.
There were some outright winners in this election. Olivia Taylor running in Ward B for the first time got a large proportion of votes with 632 voting for her in first preferences.
Danielle Mulholland smashed Ward C votes with 737. Tom Cooper was second with 397 votes.
The quota to be elected for councillor was 441 votes. Any candidates who didn’t meet this quota – and there were quite a few – were elected in order of the number of votes.
In the first count, it was Ward C that had the closest race for third position. James Murray and Robin Harley were neck and neck through the count but by the end, Harley came ahead by 17 votes (This was in the first preference votes).
Things get tricky in the counting as candidates are excluded from the race and second preferences are allocated.
All of that doesn’t matter now – this is your new Kyogle Council.
It was a ‘dirty’ election with accusations of foul play from many candidates at forums and in the removal of election posters. The conflicts in the last council hung heavy in this election.
That is in the past and now, it’s time to get to work at the October 14 meeting, to welcome new councillors as they settle into their roles, elect a mayor and discuss the core council business of roads, rates and rubbish (and a lot of other things).
Congratulations to all elected councillors.
More information on voting and preferences can be found at the NSW Electoral Commission site.
and then