There will be nine new faces when Wollongong and Shellharbour councils meet next week.
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Councillors in both cities were declared at the weekend, with Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery officially taking up the mantle again, receiving 54.2 per cent of the vote after preferences.
He will be joined by five returning councillors –David Brown, Leigh Colacino, Janice Kershaw, Chris Connor and John Dorahy – as well as former councillor Vicky King, who will return to the council after retiring 13 years ago.
Half the councillors will serve their first term, including two new Greens: Mithra Cox and Cath Blakey.
Ryan Park’s staffer Jenelle Rimmer, will follow in the footsteps of her late father Ian Hunt – a councillor between 1995 and 2004 – after being elected in the northern suburbs, while university executive Tania Brown will represent Labor in central Wollongong.
Former Port Kembla Port CEO Dom Figliomeni has been elected as an independent councillor off the back of Cr Bradbery’s ticket, and Young Liberal Cameron Walters will represent his party in the southern suburbs.
In Shellharbour Labor has won control of the council, with four out of seven of the elected candidates members of the ALP.
This means Marianne Saliba will be returned as mayor when councillors first meet on September 26.
She will be supported by returning ALP councillor John Murray, who ran as an independent after not being pre-selected on Labor’s ticket, as well as Moira Hamilton – widow of late former Shellharbour mayor, David Hamilton – and high school teacher Robert Petreski.
Killalea manager Nathan Cattell has been elected as the sole Liberal councillor, while Peter Moran and Kellie Marsh were reelected.