THE seven successful candidates in the Alpine Shire Council election will be officially sworn in as councillors on Thursday, following the formal declaration of ballot results by the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) last Friday.
In front of a small crowd at the council offices in Bright, the VEC's Alpine Shire election manager Linda Parkinson declared Sarah Nicholas as the first elected, followed by John Andersen, Gareth Graham, Peter Smith, Noah Tanzen, David Byrne and Jean-Pierre Ronco, from the field of 12 candidates.
Ms Nicholas was the only councillor from the past four years seeking re-election and she was the first elected, claiming 1430 first preference votes, which was 18.11 per cent of the total vote and well over the 988 vote quota required for election.
Mr Andersen was the only other candidate to be elected on first preference votes, gaining 1255 (515.89%), with proportional counting helping decide the remaining five successful candidates to achieve the required quota.
Councillors-elect Andersen, Graham and Smith were the only successful candidates at the Friday's declaration and each thanked their families, friends and fellow candidates as well as the staff at the Alpine Shire Council offices and VEC for their hard work.
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Councillor-elect Nicholas, who was unable to attend the declaration, said she was looking forward to serving the next four year term.
“It will be really exciting having a new team; they look really good,” she said.
“My first goal is to help build the team, to work with them and to get everyone up to speed, including me: that will be crucial.
“Also, there’s a real need to update the statutory planning response program; I’ll look to improve that and also customer enquiries, by working to create timely and comprehensive responses.
“I'm keen and looking forward to talking to and engaging with the community about those discussions.”
Councillor-elect Andersen said he "surprised and very, very happy" with the result.
“After I started talking to people about running for council, I found the feedback was very positive and I really started to believe I could do this," he said.
“My goals are to learn as much as I can, to get to know my other councillors and find common ground with them.
“I want to encourage people in the community to come to council meetings and get involved.
“Even though it feels like a long way away, my four-year plan is to make a meaningful contribution for my community and the people in the shire.”
Councillor-elect Graham said he, like the majority of the new council, will be stepping into the unknown.
“I guess there’s a little bit of trepidation: it will be a steep learning curve for the six of us, besides Sarah,” he said.
“I think it'll be a pretty good team; I haven't met everyone yet.
“It’s hard to know at the moment what our goals will be until after we are trained.
“We have eight days of induction and training over the next four weeks, then when the mayor and deputy mayor are elected, they will have a further four days in Melbourne.
“I’m not exactly sure what the four-year plan will be: we’ll see what develops.
“I'm looking forward to an interesting next four years."
Councillor-elect Smith said he was very excited about the next four years.
“When I read through the candidates, I thought it looked like a good group: a varying mix of young and old, those with mixed experiences and so on," he said.
“I think new blood is great, but it's good to have some continuity; its' great that Sarah's been re-elected.
“It's a fair bit for us to take in over the next few weeks, but it should be great.
“We’ll get this next couple of weeks of training started, get involved and tackle things head on.”
Councillor-elect Byrne said he is very happy that he will be able to do something more for the community.
“I've never been a big campaigner, I prefer to work by deeds,” he said.
“I hope I can build a successful future for the community.
"It's difficult to say what our plans will include; I'd prefer not to say until we've had our first meeting.
“We've got a lot of learning to do before we make our first changes.
“We will create a new four-year plan, as the current one is expiring.”
Councillor-elect Ronco said he felt really honoured to be elected to council.
"I am looking forward to working for the community and I would like to encourage residents to contact me and let me know what's important to them," he said.
"I hope I can assist in giving people a voice; especially those who are experiencing challenges.
"I see the next four years as an opportunity to bring our community together and for everyone to contribute to our region becoming more cohesive, inclusive and supportive."
Alpine Shire Council chief executive officer, Will Jeremy, congratulated the seven candidates and extended his sincere thanks to the previous councillors for their contribution to the Alpine Shire.
"The previous councillors (Sarah Nicholas, John Forsyth, Ron Janas, Simon Kelly, Katarina Hughes, Kelli Prime and Tony Keeble) were a high-performing and cohesive team, with a strong focus on delivering the best for our community," he said.
"We look forward to supporting our new councillors to achieve their full potential as a team and deliver exceptional outcomes across the Alpine Shire."
Once sworn in as councillors at the shire offices in Bright on Thursday afternoon, the new council will have its first monthly meeting on Tuesday, November 25 at 5pm at the shire offices, where a mayor and deputy mayor will be elected.
HOW YOU VOTED IN COUNCIL ELECTION
For the record, first preference votes were:
Sarah Nicholas 1430 (18.11%)
John Andersen 1255 (15.89%)
David Byrne 794 (10.06%)
Noah Tanzen 789 (9.99%)
Gareth Graham 742 (9.40%)
Peter Smith 732 (9.27%)
Kevin Grentell 595 (7.54%)
Jean-Pierre Ronco 482 (6.10%)
Kitty Knappestein 437 (5.53%)
Ray Dyer 325 (4.12%)
Bruce McDonald 163 (2.06%)
Sebastian Collyer 152 (1.93%)
