BREAKING NEWS: Heenan elected Deputy Mayor

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MONDAY 7:30pm
Councillor Brendan Heenan has just been elected Deputy Mayor with the support of Mayor Damien Ryan, and Councillors Liz Martin (who nominated Cr Heenan), Chansey Paech (the seconder) and Jade Kudrenko.
Cr Eli Melky nominated Cr  Steve Brown for the position to be held for one year, seconded by Cr Geoff Booth and also supported by Cr Dave Douglas. The five to four vote was as predicted by the Alice Springs News Online.

3 COMMENTS

  1. Well done Alice Springs News, you did pick it. But no fire works, though. All in all it was a good first meeting, finished at 12.45am. Councillors Brown, Booth and Douglas did very well first up. New kids on the block, Cr Chansey Paech chairing finance and Greens Cr Jade Kudrenko is in corporate and community affairs. Tonight was about sharing with family and friends a nice part of each elected member’s achievement of being elected to office.
    Big question is will elected members always play nice? Perhaps that is for another late night to ponder and maybe another post in the Alice Springs News. So stay tuned. This is your dedicated and proud councillor Eli Melky signing off. PS: For those who are interested the voting, it pretty much went 5 to 4 all night.

  2. As well as electing a Deputy Mayor, every year Council decides which Councillors will represent it on its various committees that meet from once a month to once a year. On Monday night representatives were chosen for 31 committees.
    Usually the number of Councillors needed on committees is the number nominated. A vote is not necessary. However, sometimes there are more nominees than positions, and a vote is required.
    And this is where I feel the process breaks down. To use one example from Monday night, on the Alice Springs Town Council & Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation Partnership Committee two representatives were required and five Councillors were nominated. Council determined who got the spots by voting for each nominee in order of their nomination with any Councillor reaching an outright majority (5) declared elected as soon as it happened.
    In the example, the first nominee received 6 votes and was elected, the second received 4 votes and was excluded and the third received 5 votes and was elected. The last two nominees never made it off the starting line.
    I suggest a fairer method would be to vote on each nominee in the order of their nomination, but to not declare anyone elected until the votes were counted for each nominee. Then the two with the highest number of votes would be declared elected. That way all nominees would get a chance.

  3. No fire works? Play Nice? I am genuinely shell shocked at your comments, Councillor Melky. Playing nice as an elected member is putting the town and its issues first and foremost – not doing clandestine deals where if the first of your gang of four doesn’t get elected (Deputy Mayor) the rest will decline their nominations for Committee Chair positions.
    For four grown men, all successful business persons in this town; all of whom have just spent the campaign period spruking their superior business acumen and a sheer determination to get the job done for the Alice, the tactics of Monday night’s council meeting were paramount to nothing short of playground politics. Shame! Shame! Shame! on you Eli for instrumenting that stupidity and then accusing me of the same.
    To Jade Kudrenko and Chansey Paech who stepped up to the plate in absence of the obvious choices I commend your loyalty to the job and congratulate you on the tremendous job you did chairing committees after literally being thrown in the deep end. I have no doubts the town are proud of you. I certainly was.
    Hopefully now, stunts of a similar vein will be put behind us and we can get on the job we were elected for. So Yes, Councillor Melky, I give you my undertaking that I will “play nice” provisional to you cutting out the game playing and manipulating. This is our town and our future, don’t muck it up!

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