Tough wait ends for candidates
IT'S been an agonising week's wait for council candidates but it all came to an end last night when the final nine were announced.
Margaret McKenna said this week was like waiting to give birth to a baby, not knowing the sex, and she spent the whole week "obsessively cleaning" to try to distract herself.
"My mum passed away in the last month, so I started going through her stuff too and I was in tears and I just kept thinking, get me out of this misery," she said.
"It's just such a relief now to know."
Greg Clancy missed out as all six serving councillors were re-elected and newcomers Andrew Baker, Jason Kingsley and Jeremy Challacombe took up positions.
"I knew it was going to be close and that the preference vote was going to determine it," said Mr Clancy, who was ahead of both Margaret McKenna and Karen Toms during the week.
"I was hoping I would get in and I think someone with my background needs to be on there, particularly with the balance of council at the moment.
"Considering I'm known as an environmentalist, I think I did very well."
Mr Clancy said he would continue to lobby council and would reconsider running again in the future.
The results came in close to deadline last night just before 7pm and while we don't have the numbers yet, candidates appear here in order of highest to lowest votes and we will post the results online over the weekend with more coverage in Monday's print edition.
At press time, candidates still had 24 hours to call for a recount so the result will not be official until Saturday night.
