The position of president at the Shire of Murray president will remain unfilled until local government elections in October, avoiding the need for a costly extraordinary election.
It follows the departure of former president David Bolt, who was elected to State Parliament last month as the member for Murray-Wellington.
The council voted last week to authorise chief executive Dean Unsworth to ask the WA Electoral Commissioner to allow the vacancy to stand until the election of a president as part of the October local government elections.
Cr Douglas McLarty will be acting president until October.
“It’ll save the council money so it just makes sense,” Cr Stuart Kirkham said in moving the motion to defer an election.
Cr McLarty said he had big shoes to fill after Mr Bolt’s departure to State politics.
“He (Bolt) has done a mighty fine job as president,” Cr McLarty said. “I think we can all agree we’ve seen this shire progress in ways we didn’t think possible because of him and I wish him all the very best.”
Cr Ange Rogers was voted in to fill Cr McLarty’s previous role as deputy president.