CITIZENS throughout much of the New England and north-west cast a vote for their local council for the next four years on Saturday with the Nar-rabri Shire Council seeing a big swing of first preference votes towards candidates with no connection with the previous council led by mayor Ross Panton.
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Topping the poll was a surveyor, Ross Gleeson, who was not a member of the last council.
At the close of counting of the first preference votes on Saturday night, Mr Gleeson had gained 660 votes, with another first-time aspirant, Ron Lowder, finishing in second place with 620 votes.
Cr Panton still polled well with 586 first
preferences.
Bevan O'Regan, a long-time councillor who polled well to get 465 votes, told The Leader yesterday that "we've had a clean out ... I'm happy with the result".
Others to poll well were Tim Frager (571 FP votes), Tony Meppem (495), Ken Bates (456) and Conrad Bolton (372).
Of those four, only Mr Bates was a sitting member of the council.
The Armidale Duma-resq Council election did not turn up many surprises with long-time councillor and deputy mayor Peter Ducat topping the poll with 2602 first preference votes.
He and mayor Brian Chetwynd were the only two to make the quota (1047 votes) to ensure their automatic election.
Cr Chetwynd said yesterday he was gratified to receive such a high vote (1641) as he had only entered local government in May 2000 when
he was elected to the
new Armidale Dumaresq Council, which was a merger of the old Armidale city and the Dumaresq shire councils.
He was elected mayor in September that year.
He said he believed the other candidates who looked likely to get elected were Cr Brian Kelly, Cr Herman Beyersdorf, Cr Bev Roobol and Bruce Whan and Jim Maher.
Mr Whan is a former member of the Armidale Dumaresq Council and Mr Maher is a lecturer
at the University of
New England and a
former chairman of
the New England Area Health board.
Cr Chetwynd said he believed other "strong chances" were councillors Brian Kelly and Bev Roobol because of preferences and Margaret Walford, Chris Halligan, Rob Taber and three incumbent councillors, Roger Patricks, Ken Waters and Laurie Knight.
Voting for the Gunnedah Shire Council saw mayor Gae Swain romp home at the top of the voting with 2599 first preference votes, 1819 ahead of Adam Marshall who finished in second place with 770 votes.
• An election to form the new Peel Regional Council will be held on Saturday, June 26, and an election for the Glen Innes Municipal and the Severn Shire councils who will merge, will be held towards the end of this year.
