City of Wodonga - Wards and Structure

Wards and Structure

Prior to 1994, Wodonga was divided into four wards, each of which elected three councillors:

• Baranduda Ward
• Belvoir Ward
• Bonegilla Ward
• Greenhill Ward

The council was replaced with three commissioners on 18 November 1994, and at the 1997 inaugural elections of the new council, five councillors were elected to an unsubdivided municipality. Following the enactment of the Local Government (Democratic Reform) Act 2003 (Vic.), which amended the Local Government Act 1989, an independent review of Wodonga's internal structure was commissioned and advertised on 13 May 2004 by the Victorian Government. The final report by the Victorian Electoral Commission, issued on 27 September 2004, recommended that the council be increased in size to seven elected members, noting that at the time of the report, Wodonga was the only city council with fewer than seven, and that the task of representing the diversity and issues of a growing regional city was complex. It recommended leaving the City unsubdivided as it had a single, dominant centre and a small area.

The council was restructured accordingly and elections held on 26 November 2005 returned seven councillors with Rodney Wangman as mayor and Brian Wicks as deputy mayor. Elections in late November 2008 resulted in four of the sitting seven councillors losing their seats, and saw the City of Wodonga gain a new Mayor and Deputy-Mayor, in Crs. Mark Byatt and Angela Collins.