By Luis Feliu
Greens councillor Katie Milne has been re-elected as mayor of Tweed, with new councillor Chris Cherry elected as deputy mayor, forming the first all-female leadership team in Tweed Shire’s history.
At yesterday afternoon’s first meeting since the October council election, Cr Milne, who won the most primary votes at the poll, beat the National Party veteran Cr Warren Polglase in a 4-3 vote for the mayoralty, which is now for a two-year term instead of one.
Cr Cherry, a Pottsville community campaigner, was also voted in 4-3 for the deputy position for the next 12 months against Murwillumbah businessman Pryce Allsop.
The voting pattern confirmed that faction or bloc voting will again be a feature of the next four year term of council.
The progressive majority are Crs Milne and Cherry, Labor’s Reece Byrnes and Kingscliff no-high-rise campaigner Ron Cooper.
The minority conservative bloc of Crs Polglase and Allsop, who is Nats backed, and the Liberals’ James Owen, from Casuarina, is expected to oppose them on many issues.
Many in the packed public gallery, which included family and friends as well as Richmond MP Justine Elliot and former deputy mayor Gary Bagnall, applauded and cheered when Crs Milne and Cherry were elected.
Cr Milne, who had served as mayor for the past year, said she welcomed the councillors’ renewed endorsement saying, ‘We can work really well together’.
She said her priority was ‘trying to keep that agenda of sustainability going – it’s more important than ever’.
‘There’s obviously some very important environmental and social issues as well, we’re a low socio-economic area and we must make sure we look after the people who need it most.’
Cr Milne praised her new deputy saying, ‘I think it’s a really big endorsement of Chris for the work that she’s done for the Pottsville community over so many years, respecting all sides of the community, she’s well known and well respected’.
In another first, Cr Reece Byrnes, at 28, is the youngest councillor to be elected to Tweed council.
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