Defeated mayor candidate to watch ‘from a distance’

Neil Smithson says he will watch Albany’s developments “from a distance” after confirming he will leave town after his unsuccessful tilt at the post of mayor in the City of Albany local government election.

A total of 8477 residents and ratepayers voted in the mayoral election, with Mr Smithson receiving 3027 and Dennis Wellington 5450, giving the former small business owner the City’s top job for another four years.

Before jetting off to the Sustainable Economic Growth for Regional Australia summit in Bathurst on Monday morning, Mr Wellington said he was “very pleased” with being re-elected to a second term as mayor.

He said the mood in the room on election night was “a bit tense”.

“It’s not the best time for anyone, ” he said.

“You never know how things are going to go ahead. As the results came through, the tension lifted.”

Mr Wellington said the new council was a “good mix” and said he was looking forward to working with the group.

When questioned on Monday about his future plans, Mr Smithson said he was planning to relocate to Perth by the end of this week.

“I will maintain a planning consultant’s role up there and I will watch from a distance, ” he said.

“If I was elected to the office of mayor, I would have applied my talents to the position and I had no illusions as to how difficult that would be.”

Mr Smithson said he believed the Albany City Council’s balance of power was now on a “knife’s edge”. “One of my … observations of the election is that the balance of power has changed quite considerably, ” he said.

“In fact, I would describe it as knife-edge.

“There are six in one camp and potentially six in another camp — and that leaves the mayor with the deciding vote.

“There are some very curly issues that are going to come before council and it’s going to be very interesting to see how council votes on those issues.”

Mr Smithson, who also ran as an independent candidate for the Federal seat of O’Connor in 2013, did not rule out having another go at politics in the future.