One of the crucial tasks at the start of a new term for a mayor is to make appointments to various positions within the governance structure of council.  

These are done by way of recommendations to council for decision at our inaugural meeting Wednesday (October 26) next week.

This is a crucial task because it puts in place the people to lead various functions of the governance side of council from the start of the triennium.

Firstly, I will be re-appointing Neil Gillespie as my deputy mayor. Many think that the deputy’s role is to be the stand-in when the mayor isn’t available for functions or for chairing council meetings, but in our case at least, that is not the bulk of the deputy’s role.  

Neil is my sounding board and it is a rare day that we are not in touch to discuss something or other. He offers a calm ear to the sometimes impetuous Cadogan temperament, although we do sometimes swap that function.

I am also making recommendations for which councillors will sit on the Vincent and Cromwell community boards.  

In Vincent, I need to decide which of the five councillors will take the three seats and in Cromwell, it is which of the four. This time around, I am faced with the same situation as occurred at the CCB this time three years ago with more people wanting to be on the boards than places available, except this time, that situation has occurred with both CCB and VCB.

I have made my recommendation based on the same principle I used three years ago: the recommendations will be made based on the only objective determinant that I have, which is the ranking of votes in the council election.

I am aware this method has caused disappointment for some, but I reiterate, it is the sole objective means I have at my disposal and I have been consistent with this policy over the three times I have had to apply it.  

Accordingly, my recommendations for council appointments to the boards are as follows:

Vincent – Tamah Alley, Tracy Paterson and Martin McPherson

Cromwell – Sarah Browne, Cheryl Laws and Neil Gillespie

We also operate a portfolio system at council where certain areas of governance are led by different councillors. There is little change in this, with just Tamah Alley taking the lead now in the newly named Community Vision and Engagement portfolio with Sally Feinerman as her deputy.

The only other change is that the Sustainability Portfolio I put in place and led last term will not operate this time around as the bulk of its work has been done through the implementation of our strategies towards reducing our carbon footprint by 55 per cent in five years. Monitoring of this will now fall to the full council.

There are very interesting times ahead and I am really looking forward to leading this great team of councillors into the next three years.