In Monday’s Standard, Corangamite Shire councillor Simon Illingworth called for the mayor’s position at councils across the state to be decided by ratepayers.

Cr Illingworth said the current system, where mayors were voted in by fellow councillors, was undemocratic.

Moyne Shire mayor Jim Doukas said he has always believed the mayor should be voted on by the public. He said it would help prevent internal politics playing a role in who got the top job.

“The community votes in the council and the council votes in the mayor, if you get a clique in the council and you’ve got someone there who’s an independent, then that person may not have a chance to ever be mayor, even though they could be the best person for the job,” he said.

“It’s not a matter of being a popularity contest, it’s about getting the best person for the job.”

However, Corangamite Shire mayor Jo Beard said the current system worked well.

“The experience in other states and across Victoria would suggest that popularly-elected mayors do not work well, especially in smaller councils as opposed to the capital cities,” she said.

“The mayor needs to be supported by the majority of councillors. This ensures that the mayor acts and leads in the best interest of the council as a whole.”

Warrnambool City councillor and former mayor Michael Neoh agreed that the mayor should be chosen by their peers.

Cr Neoh said a mayor elected by public vote was not guaranteed to have the support of fellow councillors, which could lead to a dysfunctional council.

“A good case study is Geelong, they had a popularly-elected mayor that didn’t have the support of the majority of councillors,” he said.

Cr Neoh said in other parts of Australia, the mayoral race often led to thousands spent on promotion to win.

“It becomes who can market themselves and have the donors and I don’t think we should go that way,” he said.

“I think that’s bad for democracy.”

Former local government commissioner and Warrnambool chief executive Vern Robson said, traditionally, councillors had voted in the longest serving member at the table as mayor.

“The advantage of that is you always had councillors with the experience of the municipality, they knew the issues,” he said.

Mr Robson said while there were merits to all systems, the example of Geelong, where media personality Darren Lyons was elected mayor and the dysfunctional council was later sacked, showed the risk of a public vote.

“The real danger with a popularly-elected mayor is they might be a popular identity in the town, but they might not have sound knowledge of the Local Government Act,” he said.

“The big problem that occurred with the City of Greater Geelong council was that they expected that someone with extensive local government experience would be elected (as mayor), but instead someone with very little experience was elected.

“Local government is very complex and you need someone with… experience to do it successfully.”

 The City of Melbourne and City of Greater Geelong are the only Victorian councils to have a popular vote for the mayor’s role, although Geelong is likely to scrap the policy.