I arrived home to the local news that by a majority of one the acting general manager Troy Green had been appointed to the position of general manager of the Tweed Shire Council on a five-year annual contract for $300,000.
For 10 months, Troy had certainly played his cards very close to the chest and finally won against a tough field: ‘the best of British’ to him.
Who voted for Troy? I decided to find out.
Mayor Barry was a cert, as was his partner in all political endeavors, the deputy ALP mayor. The main opposition were two top women candidates.
It was a no-brainer which way Cr Youngblutt’s vote would go.
The Greens’ Katie (Milne), a long-time advocate of a woman GM, and Cr Gary Bagnall together voted for a woman.
So where was Warren (Polglase) in all of this? I rang to find out: ‘I wanted someone new in there,’ he said. But did the Crocodile vote for a woman GM?
‘I wanted someone new in there’, he repeated. There you have it Warren-haters, the Crocodile has finally mellowed (a smidgen at least).
Kingscliff Cr Carolyn Byrne obviously had tipped the balance. I rang: ‘What happened to the sisterhood and the ratepayers Carolyn?’ ‘I vote for stability’, she said.
Is Troy stable? All the officers like him and you’ll probably see him quietly start introducing the reforms David Keenan was trying to bring in. But David Keenan was trying to restructure and reduce the staff budget by one million dollars?
That would be nice.
Terry Sharples, Tweed Heads
