The Beagle Editor
The Eurobodalla Council has now had three publicly elected mayors. The publicly or popularly elected mayors are the result of a referendum held about sixteen years ago. The first peoples elected mayor was about twelve years ago. Prior to that Councillors took a vote each year from within their ranks as to who should be Mayor. To date the shires voters have elected three mayors themselves. Fergus Thomson, Lindsay Brown and Liz Innes Since putting in place a mayor who can stay retain the position and remain unchallenged there has been building community criticism of the Council for various reasons. General managers and other senior staff seem to be comfortable with the popularly elected mayor arrangements though, providing a sense of managerial stability and security for them it seems. But the shires residents are becoming much more vocal and disenchanted with the council with the current arrangements.
It’s probably time for the way the four year Eurobodalla Elected Mayoral Terms to be reviewed and put to the people again as a referendum. The present arrangements of the Mayoral elections have become unpalatable to many in the shire. What do others have to say ?
Allan Brown
Catalina
