POPULAR Mildura tourism boss Brett Millington has been snubbed as a choice to be the council’s next chief executive.
Multiple sources have told Sunraysia Daily Mr Millington, the current Mildura Regional Development chief executive, was the last standing preferred candidate as Mildura’s local government boss when councillors voted on the appointment on Thursday.
In a statement issued on Friday morning, the council said it had “resolved to conclude the current chief executive officer recruitment process as a satisfactory applicant could not be identified”.
“Council will soon make a decision about when the new recruitment process should begin,” the statement read.
“In the meantime, council will consider options for the interim chief executive officer role.”
Mr Millington was elevated from board member to Mildura Regional Development’s chief executive in 2019 following a nationwide hunt for the tourism body’s top job.
It is understood Mr Millington was one of two preferred candidates vying for the top council position until a Queensland-based candidate pulled out of the running.
Mr Millington declined to comment when contacted on Friday.
Mildura Mayor Jason Modica said that while much of the process in considering the appointment of a council chief executive was confidential, he confirmed the matter was put to a vote of councillors on Thursday afternoon.
Cr Modica would not confirm whether the vote was in regard to one remaining preferred candidate, citing “confidentiality” and refused to disclose whether all councillors were involved in the vote.
“That’s also confidential,” Cr Modica said.
“The majority of our decisions around the CEO selection are based on a vote at the end, but the outcome and how that works is confidential,” he said.
“It’s a confidential meeting for a reason, that is for the privacy of all the applicants.”
He said the selection panel comprised all councillors as well as the council’s CEO employment matters independent person.
Councillors were initially poised to meet late Wednesday to discuss “Appointment of a Chief Executive Officer”, however Cr Modica said that meeting was rescheduled to Thursday due to “an availability issue of a councillor”.
“We were working to have everybody in the room,” he said.
Cr Modica said he expected councillors would meet again next week to discuss the appointment of an interim chief to replace current interim chief executive Phil Shanahan.
“We’ve gone through the selection process and we haven’t appointed, so we’ll be looking at appointing another interim and we’ll see how that goes,” he said.
“Like everything we have done, we go through the process put in front of us to select a CEO and if that doesn’t happen we go back to choosing an interim to run the day-to-day business and then move on from there.
“We’ve gone to the market and the people in the position to select the prospective CEO and the market has identified that the right person wasn’t there, it’s as simple as that.”
Mr Millington has more than 15 years of experience at executive level in the utilities industry and was an inaugural board member of Mildura Regional Development.
His CV includes a previous position as program director with Intelligent Water Networks, a partnership between VicWater and 17 Victorian Water Corporations plus the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.
He has a Bachelor of Science degree with honours from the University of Melbourne and postgraduate qualifications in business administration from the University of Queensland and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Mr Millington attended school in Sunraysia and has maintained strong professional ties with the region.
