Oscar Parry
With five new faces entering the chamber, the nine elected Macedon Ranges councillors were sworn in at a ceremony in Gisborne.
Hosted on Monday, November 11, the councillors each took an oath of office and shared a short acceptance speech, marking the beginning of the four-year role.
In East Ward, three new councillors take the reigns – Cassy Borthwick, Andrew Scanlon, and Daniel Young.
Cr Young said he chose to run for council after being an “East Ward local” his whole life and wanting to give back to the community.
“When you’re looking at that kind of permanency in your life, you want to make sure that your community’s looked after and decided to have a tilt at giving them a hand at looking after it,” he said.
“I’ve got a lot … political background, mostly from an … independent party perspective, so I have seen the frustrations that party politics can cause and how more individual voices can be drowned out.”
Cr Young was previously a Victorian Shooters, Fishers and Farmers upper house party member.
New West Ward councillor Kate Kendall told Star Weekly that she is looking forward to “representing a voice of a community.”
“Most of the people who voted for me were a vote for change. They really want to improve and grow [the] council and they were putting their trust in me as a fresh perspective,” Cr Kendall said.
“I hope that we can continue to fix roads and do the basics well, I hope that we can improve how we communicate with the community and be a lot more agile in our strategic plans.”
The mayor and deputy mayor are set to be declared on Friday, November 22, subject to change.
