MILDURA tradie Jason Modica says he believes he has the right credentials to become Mildura’s next mayor on Thursday night.
The twice-elected deputy mayor challenged for the top position last year, but was narrowly defeated five votes to four by former Victoria Police inspector Simon Clemence, who made a last-minute bid for the chair.
Cr Modica was first elected to council in 2016, when he was the eighth of nine councillors elected from 28 candidates with 1240 first preference votes.
He improved his position at this year’s election with 2155 first preference votes to be fourth elected behind councillors Glenn Milne, Ian Arney and Liam Wood.
Cr Modica this week confirmed he would again contest the top job and said he was up for the challenge.
“I’m still keen to put my hand up when the time comes and I have been talking to individual councillors and just trying to get the support needed to try to get across the line,” Cr Modica said.
“As twice deputy mayor and having served under some good former leaders in the community I’ve always had that ability to want to communicate and continue a discussion for the best outcome,” he said.
“Just really putting the community at heart and being prepared to listen, not only to your colleagues, but the community as well as a whole.”
Cr Modica said he had been in discussions with other councillors “making sure that they are comfortable with what I present and how we can work together as a group”.
“Local council is a place where we make tough decisions and we need to make sure that we can trust each other to have a robust discussion for the betterment of the community and the strategic overview of the town and then come back together and realise that in the following month we’ll have just as many decisions to make again,” he said.
“We should be giving each other the support that we’re comfortable to disagree or to wholeheartedly agree and to give each other the support that we can have our say filtered through that consultation with community.”
Cr Modica said that two terms as deputy mayor had allowed him to find a comfortable symmetry between work, family and civic duties.
“This is my second four-year apprenticeship other than the one that I did to get my trade — the first four years of council have given me the ability to balance that out,” he said.
“If I was lucky enough to get the greater role I would definitely be able to work my business around that and, again, there’s always the deeper consideration of family that is usually first consideration, but they have always supported me in my role as a local politician.”
He said the initial induction phase of the new-look council — with five new councillors — had given the city’s leadership group an opportunity to bond.
“It’s given us an opportunity to get to know each other — the newly elected councillors and even the councillors who have been on before to reconnect and learn more about each other so when the time comes we can get together and try to nut out the issues that come to us,” he said.
“There was very much a positive feel — there’s a wonderful mix of experience and youth, there’s a great mix of people from many, many different backgrounds work-wise.
“I think that’s the benefit of having seven or nine councillors — you have those multiple points of view with the endeavour of bringing different points of view into the chamber so we can have the required debate to get a good result.”
