FOUR Frankston councillors have been turfed by voters after council elections held on 22 October.
The Victorian Electoral Commission declared results on Sunday evening (30 October) that confirmed Crs Glenn Aitken, Brian Cunial, Colin Hampton, Sandra Mayer and Michael O’Reilly were re-elected.
Four former councillors — Rebekah Spelman, former mayor James Dooley, Suzette Tayler and ex-mayor Darrel Taylor — were not re-elected.
All nine of Frankston’s councillors serving from 2012-16, representing three regional wards, stood for re-election.
The new councillors elected for a four-year council term alongside the five re-elected councillors are Kris Bolam, Quinn McCormack, Lillian O’Connor and Steve Toms.
Mr Bolam is no stranger to local government having previously served as a councillor at Frankston Council before the 2012-16 council term. He was mayor in 2011.
Ratepayers voted by post and the VEC allowed a week this time around to allow for votes posted before Friday 21 October to be counted in the final tallies.
Voting in council elections is compulsory and non-voters enrolled on the electoral roll for elections may face a fine.
Ballot papers were marked as priority post but Australia Post made changes to its minimum delivery times in January this year and it can now take up to four business days for priority mail to arrive at its destination.
The VEC’s decision to allow six days after election day to receive all votes cast means councils across the state had no councillors from 6am on election day until new and re-elected councillors are sworn in this week.
Councils were still able to function despite the lack of elected representatives.
Frankston Council confirmed previous councillors did not receive remuneration after 21 October.
The results released by the VEC are provisional and subject to final ratification but there is little chance of change to the outcome in Frankston since no results were marginal enough to trigger recounts.
Preferential voting is used where a ward is electing a single councillor.
In Frankston, all three wards have three councillor spots so proportional voting is used first to determine if councillors win enough first preference votes to achieve a quota and be elected in their own right.
Preferences are distributed to decide which candidates are elected if they do not receive enough votes to achieve a quota.
The exit of four councillors comes after two years of infighting at Frankston Council between councillors, amid accusations of bullying and harassment, that has often spilled into the open at public council meetings.
External investigators, lawyers and arbitrators have been paid more than $30,000 of ratepayers’ money – excluding salaries for council officers’ time – in several cases in the past two years to adjudicate on councillors’ misconduct complaints against each other.
North-East ward councillors are: Sandra Mayer (1st successful), Michael O’Reilly (2nd successful) and Colin Hampton (3rd successful).
North-West ward councillors are: Kris Bolam (1st successful), Lillian O’Connor (2nd successful) and Glenn Aitken (3rd successful).
South ward councillors are: Brian Cunial (1st successful), Quinn McCormack (2nd successful) and Steve Toms (3rd successful).
See vec.vic.gov.au for full details of all votes tallies.
This article will be published in the Frankston Times dated 31 October 2016.
