FIVE sitting councillors have been re-elected to the new Bass Coast Shire Council, bucking the trend of the past two elections where only a single councillor survived the poll.
In Bunurong, where five candidates contested three positions, former Bass Coast mayor Brett Tessari took out almost half of the first preference votes.
Second place in Bunurong went to a new candidate, Leticia Laing, and third place to Les Larke, a sitting councillor, who scraped in 25 votes ahead of Michael Nugent, a Greens candidate, following the distribution of preferences. Sitting councillor Julian Brown was unsuccessful. | The figures 5 old hands; 4 fresh faces. 6 men; 3 women. 42,627 enrolled voters 34,807 voted (81.65%) |
He was followed by new councillor Rochelle Halstead, a former mayor of Frankston in 2004 and Liberal candidate for Frankston in the 2006 state election, who out-performed two sitting councillors. Sitting councillor and former mayor Clare Le Serve was returned for her third term as a councillor. Geoff Ellis missed out.