Former Douglas Shire Councillor, David George Pitt, is one of the final candidates to put his hand up to run for the mayoral position in the new Council, announcing his intention to run for the top job late last week.

Mr Pitt, known locally as George, was a Douglas Shire councillor from 2004 to 2008, says it was his wife who changed his mind and make an 11th-hour bid to run as mayor.

“It was only a last minute decision to change, so given that I thought ‘Why not?’” he said.

“If I’m fortunate enough to get across the line and use some of the training we had given to us on the last council, I’ll have the opportunity to do so.”

Mr Pitt was educated at Mossman State and Mossman High schools, and has lived in the shire his whole life. He says he has travelled eight times to England, and visited South East Asia, including Malaysia and Thailand, when he was a member of the Federal Marine and Tropical Science advisory committee for two years board, which he says provided him with additional educational experiences on issues that also affect Far North Queensland.

 “I believe we heading into strong economic winds, and for this shire to survive, I honestly believe we need to be conservative with our spending, while still maintaining all pour central services,” he said.

“But it’s going to be very tough times money wise in the first two years as we don’t know how much we’re going to get back from Cairns (Regional Council), including any big ticket items.

“We will need to sit with our new CEO and chief of financials in the council to address issues on what to spend money on, but we must be conservative at the same time.

“There will be many groups in the community who will want funding dollars in the early stages of Council’s existence, but we have to be upfront with these groups and say we need to be conservative with our spending.

“I will endeavour to have a team that will work together and have discussions at council meetings.

“I don’t want to look backwards in the rear view mirror, I want to look forward on where we are today and at the end of the two years we need to be in a stronger, better, financial position.

“At the end of the day, while it took a lot of work, and a lot of people disagreed on the de-amalgamation, we now have our shire back and we’ve now got to endeavour to do our very best to make sure we keep our shire.”

Main priorities:

• To ensure the new DSC maintains its central services
• Supply good quality water to the shire;
• Maintain the region as a premier tourist destination;
• Make sure our waterways are safe;
• Ensure a good working relationship with State and Federal Governments; and
• Resolve to negotiate a good outcome to share the resources with Cairns Regional Council.