“I’m concerned there’s too much negativity in Wodonga to be quite honest,” Mr Snell said when asked why he was nominating.

“You pick up the paper and all you see is negative comments.

“We’ve got a situation where seven seats are up for grabs, you would expect three of them to go to the existing councillors, so there will be four new ones.

“If those new ones are all negative they’ve got the controlling vote and they would bring the place to its knees.”

Mr Snell, a grandfather of eight who lives at Bonegilla, lauded the current council.

“If you go in and look at a checklist of what’s been achieved they’ve done a very good job,” he said.

“They’ve done a good job of securing grants from governments, for instance with High Street they’ve got $10 million from the federal government to finish that.”

Mr Snell said council debt had fallen and the costly Logic project was starting to generate more business and therefore rates.

“In all honesty if council didn’t have some debt with interest rates where they are today that would tell you they weren’t having a go,” he said.

The suggestion that council should live stream meetings to improve communication with residents drew some scepticism.

“I’m not sure about that one, I need to think about that and the repercussions,” Mr Snell said.

“It’s easy to turn a tap on, sometimes it’s hard to turn it off.”

Mr Snell grew up in South Gippsland, but has lived in Wodonga since 2001 after moving to the city initially in 1979 before shifting to Melbourne.

A retiree, he worked in financial services and his interest in not-for-profit ventures involved him overseeing the expansion of Westmont at Baranduda.