Tony Quinn has been elected as mayor for Greater Hume Council at Tuesday night's meeting, narrowly beating long-serving Heather Wilton for the position.
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Cr Wilton had been the council's mayor since 2012, but in a show of hands vote for the position going forward, Cr Quinn received five votes and Cr Wilton received four.
There were no other nominations for the mayoral role.
Cr Quinn, a Gerogery West resident, said he was surprised to be elected mayor.
"Local government's a game," he said.
"Over the years you think you've got the numbers and you often don't have them, all sorts of things happen, but it was a little bit of a surprise to me the numbers turned up the way they did."
Cr Quinn attributed his win to his different form of leadership.
He has been a councillor on and off for about 12 years with Greater Hume.
Cr Quinn said in his role as mayor he wanted to open up the shire for business.
"A certainly try to get more people to live in the shire," he said.
"I'd be wanting to stress the point of how many sporting facilities we've got to get as many young people and families as we can into the area."
Cr Wilton could not be contacted for comment on Tuesday night.
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The role of deputy mayor went to Cr Annette Schilg, who won by one vote (five total votes) against Cr Doug Meyer (four votes) who had previously held the role.
Cr Schilg said she was chuffed to be elected deputy.
"I'm looking forward to it, it's just another achievement in council," she said.
"Tony has a lot of experience so I think we'll be able to work together, he's got a lot of knowledge there that he can share moving forward."
Cr Schilg said she thought it was time for a change of leadership.
"And the new [councillors] had sort of indicated that it was probably time for a change," she said.
The council's next meeting will be on February 2.
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