Janet Pearce elected Macedon Ranges mayor

After a tight contest Janet Pearce has been elected mayor of Macedon Ranges Council.

Cr Janet Pearce is the new Macedon Ranges mayor.

A NEW team has taken the helm at Macedon Ranges Council.

West Ward councillor Janet Pearce was elected mayor at a meeting on Wednesday evening, replacing Cr Jennifer Anderson.

Cr Pearce was elected 5-4 after a tight contest with Cr Natasha Gayfer.

The new mayor said she was looking forward to working with her fellow councillors on a range of issues.

“I’m very excited and very happy, very pleased and thankful to the councillors for supporting me,” she said.

“It’s a great time to reflect.”

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Cr Pearce said her priorities would be formalising council strategies for national and state issues like NBN, the Macedon Ranges statement of planning policy, better support for volunteer groups, the Hanging Rock strategic plan and listening posts throughout the shire.

“I’d like to look into programs of how we can support volunteers more in the community. They’re the heart of it all,” she said.

In another departure from recent years, Cr Mandi Mees was elected deputy mayor.

The council had refrained from electing a second-in-command since its election in 2016, but after a split debate on the issue, Cr Mees was voted in unopposed.

“It gives me great pleasure to support Cr Pearce as mayor,” she said.

“The key role I’m looking at playing is trying to find the biggest priorities that are important to councillors and working better with the organisation to achieve those in the final two years that we have.”

Councillors thanked outgoing mayor Jennifer Anderson for guiding new councillors through the first half of their first terms in a “caring, understanding manner”.

Cr Bill West, a former journalist, ranked the outgoing mayor among the best he’d seen.

“I saw a lot of councillors from the other side of the fence,” he said.

“Your tremendous work ethic, leadership, ability to communicate with ratepayers puts you up among the top that I’ve seen in action.”

@JessCoates4

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