Two mayors and a deputy will contest the upcoming Ballarat mayoral election, but there’s less clarity around who will be elected second in command.
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Only ten days out from the election, current mayor Samantha McIntosh and deputy mayor Daniel Moloney have both put their hats in the ring, alongside former mayor Mark Harris.
However no councillor has officially put up their hand for the deputy role. Cr Belinda Coates said she was “considering” a tilt at the vice mayoral position on Friday.
While The Courier could not get in contact with Cr Jim Rinaldi before deadline, it is understood he may be a potential nominee for deputy mayor. Nominations must be submitted for the roles by 5pm Monday, with the vote held at the October 29 special council meeting.
Cr McIntosh said the top job was “all about providing consistency and making sure we deliver”.
“I believe we have achieved an enormous layer of project delivery during my previous two terms as mayor and it’s been very exciting to see some of the very difficult projects in the past come to fruition,” she said.
Cr Moloney said while Cr McIntosh had worked incredibly hard for the city, “we clearly need to make a change because business as usual won’t cut it in 2019”.
“It will be a year unlike any other we’re experienced in decades, a significant amount of disruption from number of projects … and significant amount of opportunity,” he said.
Cr Harris said he’d like to use the role to encourage City of Ballarat to have a “bigger involvement in advocacy in what our community wants in this term of council”.
“We’ve got to do a little bit better in making our state colleagues understand that we have functioning bureaucracy and infrastructure here … we do know our region pretty well,” he said.
Councillors Grant Tillett, Ben Taylor and Des Hudson confirmed they would not contest either position. The night’s proceedings will be one of councillor Amy Johnson’s last official duties before a leave of absence to contest the state election.