For regular watchers of the strange political world of Redland City Council, the departure of mayor Jos Mitchell was inevitable – but exactly how the ending played out had its own surprises.
The bayside council that borders Brisbane, Logan and the Gold Coast has long been a hostile and divided place. When Mitchell’s “Leading Change” team of independents won the mayoralty, but failed to secure a majority in the 2024 election, a very rough four years appeared to be locked in.
Mitchell succeeded former mayor Karen Williams, who sat in the big chair from 2012 to 2024, and chose not to run again after crashing her council-owned Lexus while drunk in 2022.
She defeated former federal MP Andrew Laming in a testy race where candidates were issued official warnings over the potential legal ramifications of “non-compliant behaviour”.
Eight of 11 councillors were returned to power. Three were from the Leading Change squad; with newcomer Mitchell, they were in a minority of four.
While the two major political parties do not run official candidates in Queensland local government elections outside of Brisbane, the council Mitchell entered was thick with alliances and had a deep blue LNP tinge.
Karen Williams had sought LNP preselection for Laming’s federal seat in 2021, while the returning deputy mayor, Julie Talty, was the party’s unsuccessful candidate for Springwood in the 2017 state election.
The Redlands often leads the state in councillor conduct complaints. After the experience of her friend, former councillor Adelia Berridge, Mitchell shouldn’t have been too surprised when complaints against her started piling up.
In a statement announcing her resignation, Mitchell said she had received “around 70” complaints during her time as mayor, a tactic she had previously said was used to politically undermine her.
An early turning point came in September 2024 when the council’s chief executive Andrew Chesterman resigned, triggering a search to fill his $500,000 boots.
Reporting by this masthead has exposed the process – which sidelined Mitchell – as deeply flawed.
The first recruiter left, citing significant internal issues. One was that members of the selection panel had potential conflicts of interest with the acting chief executive Louise Rusan, who ultimately got the permanent gig.
Internal emails showed Rusan was not included in the final list of candidates in the second recruitment attempt, but was later shoe-horned into the process. It prompted long-term councillor and Mitchell ally Wendy Boglary to raise concerns of possible political influence.
The council maintained the correct process was followed, and Rusan has served in the role since.
While she was mayor, screws were found in the tyres of cars owned by Mitchell’s family. In her statement on Monday, she claimed a drone once hovered in her backyard, amounting to intimidation.
“My family has paid a heavy price for my decision to serve our community. While they have dealt with the impact with grace and dignity, no one should have to accept it as the price of public office,” she said.
In May, Mitchell went on medical leave for an undefined ailment. Earlier, she had taken three weeks off after collapsing at work and ending up in hospital.
The week before her leave, Mitchell alleged she was treated in an unacceptable manner at a meeting on the same day as a community cabinet with the state government in the Redlands.
“Many excuse poor behaviour in this realm by calling it ‘politics’,” she wrote in a post to Facebook.
“However, there is a difference between politics and behaviour that is rude, disrespectful, belittling, threatening, intimidating, bullying and harassing.”
What was meant to be six weeks’ leave was extended twice, with the latest return date circled as Monday next week.
While on leave, Mitchell copped sprays from the state government and her own council.
In July, Bronwyn Blagoev, director-general of the state’s local government department and a former OIA boss, said Mitchell’s absence had hampered the work of a governance adviser appointed to the council to help cool tempers.
Then, in August, a Redland City Council submission to a parliamentary inquiry into councillor conduct suggested “a councillor can effectively avoid accountability by simply being absent”.
“A councillor on extended leave should then be subject to a misconduct investigation,” it added.
Councillors were losing their cool with her absence more publicly too.
At both the September and October general meetings, a majority of councillors voted not to accept Mitchell’s leave.
“I think there comes a point in time where enough is enough, and it just doesn’t pass the pub test any longer,” Councillor Jason Colley told Nine News following the September meeting.
If a November vote had gone the same way, her seat would have been automatically vacated.
In her statement, Mitchell said she’d had major surgery and suffered from an autoimmune condition.
“The experiences of the last two and a half years have had a significant impact on my wellbeing,” she said.
As the mayor’s leave was extended, speculation of a by-election spread across the communication platform of choice in Redlands political circles, Facebook. Residents reported receiving phone surveys asking who they would vote for in a theoretical showdown.
Among the names proffered were Laming and ousted Capalaba Labor MP Don Brown. Both have been upping the ante on Facebook, while insisting to this masthead they’re not interested in the gig.
Other names in the mix are Talty, Boglary, and Cindy Corrie, who ran third in 2024 and is head of the local peak body, Champion Redlands Coast.
No doubt more candidates will emerge, now that the by-election is no longer theoretical.
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