Jos Mitchell has received a majority of first preference votes in the local government election and will be the next Redland City Council Mayor bringing forth her motto by “Leading Change” for the 2024-28 term.
Ms Mitchell completed her 14 months of campaigning with a celebration with friends, family and future colleagues following the announcement over the weekend that she had won the election.
After the count was publicised, Ms Mitchell took to Facebook to thank the support she had received throughout her campaign.
“Saturday was a huge day,” she said.
“I am blown away by the community support and the amazing people who joined my Leading Change campaign.
“This has been an experience like no other.”
Despite having two opposing candidates, Ms Mitchell received more than 50 per cent of the 99,875 votes.
The next Mayor received 50,272 first preference votes (52.28 per cent) in the unofficial preliminary count, taking place over the weekend and the Official First Preference Count is underway.
In the same Unofficial Preliminary Count, former federal member for Bowman, Andrew Laming received just more than a quarter of first preference votes, a total of 24,848.
Third candidate, Cindy Corrie received 21,038 votes (21.88 per cent).
Mr Laming conceded defeat late on Saturday night.
As of the preliminary vote, even if the uncounted amount had been solely for the candidate closest to Ms Mitchell, it would not have altered the final outcome.
In a statement on Facebook Ms Mitchell thanked her family for standing by her during her campaign.
“Thank you to my family, who have patiently put up with 14 months of my focus shifting to our community issues while I missed dinners and didn’t finish family conversations,” she said.
“Thank you to my fantastic colleagues who worked tirelessly to champion our community and the importance of working together transparently.
“It has been an absolutely privilege getting to know you all this year.”
Ms Mitchell thanked everyone who offered advice and works of support during what was “most likely, the most difficult election process of the 77 councils in the state”.
“Thank you to the Redlands community for coming out to vote. Your voices and votes count,” she said.
The mayoral and councillors (Division 2 through 9) are still to be confirmed.
Fellow candidates congratulated Ms Mitchell on her Facebook page, with one user commenting that the community voted in the Mayor that the Redlands needed.
Ms Mitchell said that she looks forward to working together with the incoming council for the good of the community.
“I face the very real possibility of going into a hostile council and, if the public Facebook posts for some of the existing councillors and candidates are anything to go by, this will be an interesting and continuing process,” she said.
“Change is very hard for some and it takes time, [however] the focus must be on delivering for the community.”
The leading rivalry with Mr Laming continued to the last days of the election, with Ms Mitchell winning an injunction against him regarding his commissioned signs defaming her that spread misinformation about her broader political leaning.
