Today’s Coonamble Shire Council meeting saw Tim Horan victorious, as he was voted in for the position of Mayor for the next term, snatching the position by one vote.

Running against previous Mayor Al Karanouh, today's vote saw Mayor Horan take the win 5-4, putting him back in the mayoral role he is all too familiar with. 

After serving eight years on council, largely as mayor, before leaving in 2012, Mayor Horan said his return to council was a matter of voicing community concern, with the passion he once held for local politics reignited.

“Frankly, given some of the decisions over the last few years I had a lot of contact from the community saying they were disappointed with where things are going. My interest spiked up again and I’m definitely keen to be the people’s voice and relay those concerns,” Mayor Horan said. 

“I’ve always had a great passion for politics, particularly at the local government level. So I’m excited, I’m refreshed, and I’m ready. If I wasn’t ready I wouldn’t have run,” Mayor Horan said. 

With plenty of experience under his belt, Mr Horan said he is eager to see some changes in the way the council operates both internally and with the public. 

“I want to get back to the basics, and listen to people and have genuine community consultation…we shouldn’t be just listening to them at election time, we’re going to listen to them all the time,” Mayor Horan said. 

Within council, Mr Horan said he wants to encourage debate, and make sure no councillor leaves a meeting thinking that they haven’t been heard or raised an issue. 

“When I was on council before we had meetings that went for seven or eight, nine hours, now they’re back to an hour and a half. I just don’t see how you can operate a $30 million budget in that time frame once a month,” Mayor Horan said. 

To get Coonamble back on track, he said, Mr Horan wants to see a greater focus drawn on youth, jobs, and local business. 

“The youth of today are leaders of tomorrow. I genuinely believe that, I think we need to encourage kids to stay in school and have something to go to afterwards,” he said.

“If we can encourage jobs and traineeships in council and local business to grow in our communities, we can create jobs for our kids and I think that will go a long way, rather than have a population decline,” Mayor Horan said. 

Housing and residential areas, he said, is also not doing any favours to the falling numbers of locals. 

“We’re trying to attract people to come to our town but really there’s not a block of land that you would build a house on if people are going to retire. So housing, it’s just the basics,” Mayor Horan said. 

The attention he draws to these local issues will likely come from attention once turned to the Coonamble masterplan, which Mr Horan believes to be unviable.

“(The plan) takes away the decision making processes of the current council. It’s a 20 year masterplan and current councillors really don’t get a say on some of the minor things. I’m all about forward planning but we elect people for a reason every four years and they need to be listened to,” Mayor Horan said. 

Unfortunately, what Mr Horan believes to be a community divide could be the undoing of council progress. 

“Hopefully we can overcome that with transparency and accountability and communication with the community,” he said. 

“We’ll definitely be more community oriented now rather than ‘it’s our way or the highway’, we’re definitely not going to take that approach. Hopefully people come on board with that approach and we can head in the right direction,” Mayor Horan said. 

Mayor Horan will be joined by newly elected Deputy Mayor Karen Churchill, who took the position in another 5-4 win, beating out Barbara Deans for the role.