Tatchell calls time on mayoral duties

DARREN McLEAN

MOORABOOL Shire Council mayor Cr Paul Tatchell will step down from the position at the municipality’s statutory meeting on Wednesday next week.

Cr Tatchell, who is serving his fifth term as mayor and his 13th year as a councillor, said earlier this week that he felt the time was right to pass the baton to a new leader.

He said the past municipal year had been drastically different because of the new structure imposed at last year’s local government elections – in Moorabool’s case nine councillors and no wards.

It had previously had four wards and seven councillors.

“We had a whole new council; we had two extra players plus no wards, so it needed an experienced hand to guide the new councillors and to deal with the new (structural) regime,” Cr Tatchell said.

The statutory meeting is scheduled for 6pm at the council chamber in Ballan. Nominations will be called for, with prospective mayors to be nominated by a fellow councillor.

All nominees must agree to be in the running, with a series of votes held until there is a clear winner.

Cr Tatchell said if the final two nominees had the same number of votes, the winning candidate would be “drawn out of a hat.”

No one has publicly declared an intention to seek nomination.

Cr Rod Ward, himself a former mayor, has served as Cr Tatchell’s deputy in the past year.

Cr Tatchell said he personally felt that the mayor should serve for two years because after one year a new council was still forming and new councillors were still “learning the ropes.”

“I think two years is better but in this case it hasn’t worked out that way,” he said.

Councillors opted for a one-year term at their 2024 statutory meeting.

Cr Tatchell said he had been approached to stand again but had declined.

He described the past year as a difficult one, particularly as the council fought a losing battle against an Environment Protection Authority clean-up order for industrial waste at a property near Bacchus Marsh and the looming possibility of transmission towers being erected on private land as part of the Western Renewables Link project.

“And we had a brand-new council; there’s been a number of issues throughout the year that you wouldn’t normally have (even) with a second-year council,” he said.

“The first year of any new council is always complex; this one has been particularly complex – it’s a different type of makeup of a council.”