Shellharbour City Council elected Councillor Marianne Saliba as mayor and Councillor Robert Petreski as deputy mayor for the next 11 weeks at an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday night.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Cr Saliba and Cr Petreski were voted in by a show of hands with Cr Peter Moran the only other nomination for mayor and deputy mayor.
They will only hold the roles until December 4, when new council elections will be held.
In 2020 it was announced elections for 126 councils would be moved to September 2021 because of concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.
That would have been an ideal time to coincide with mayoral elections.
But in late July this year the NSW government announced council elections would be pushed back yet again to December due to the worsening pandemic across the state.
However the Office of Local Government advised that mayoral elections must go ahead in September for mayors and deputy mayors elected in September 2019 because their two-year terms would have expired.
At the end of the extraordinary meeting Cr Saliba and Cr Petreski both thanked and acknowledge Cr John Murray for the work he did as deputy mayor.
"I would like to pay a tribute to Cr Murray who has a distinctive style with a wealth of knowledge in the public sector," Cr Petreski said.
The Illawarra Mercury news app is now officially live on both iOS and Android devices. It is available for download in the Apple Store and Google Play.
Greg Ellis
Almost four decades in electronic, print and digital media. A writer, presenter, emcee, photographer and videographer with degrees in business management, marketing and human resources and tertiary qualifications in photography.
Almost four decades in electronic, print and digital media. A writer, presenter, emcee, photographer and videographer with degrees in business management, marketing and human resources and tertiary qualifications in photography.
