Preliminary east ward byelection winner announced

Hamilton News·

17 Feb, 2018 04:15 AM2 mins to read

Preliminary winner of the east ward by election, Ryan Hamilton. Photo / Supplied

Ryan Hamilton has been announced as the preliminary winner of the east ward byelection.

Mr Hamilton, who has ran in seven public elections unsuccessfully, was announced the preliminary winner by City Council at 6:43pm on Saturday with a total of 1931 votes.

He fought off competition from Michael West who had 1535 votes and Maxine van Oosten who had 1357 votes.

"The Electoral Officer received 12869 votes, or 23.2 per cent of the 55,512 papers initially issued. This compares to the 35.4 per cent of East Ward papers returned in the 2016 full Council election," Hamilton City council said.

"The official result will be declared on Wednesday, 21 February 2018, and new Councillor Hamilton will be sworn in at an extraordinary Council meeting at 9am Thursday, 22 February 2018."

Mr Hamilton will also start partaking in the up coming 10 year plan meetings and public consultations.

Hamilton News asked Mr Hamilton in January what he would bring to the table if elected.

"I want to provide more clarity around the rates process, to build more collaborative partnerships with business and the community — the likes of Momentum and property developers such as garden place so council isn't always picking up the tab for everything and to maintain existing infrastructure and not let maintenance lapse for the sake of budgets appearing better than they are," Mr Hamilton said.

Mr Hamilton's salary as Councillor will be $71,638 per annum.

The byelection came as a result of the passing of councillor Phillip Yeung in late September.

The full preliminary results are as followed:

Ryan Hamilton 1931 votes

Michael West 1535 votes

Maxine van Oosten 1357 votes

Meleane Burgess 1064 votes

Peter Humphreys 1024 votes

Possum Allen 847 votes

Chris Rollitt 787 votes

Mohammad Sarkaw 782 votes

Ross Macleod 781 votes