Two mayoral hopefuls will battle it out at Ku-ring-gai Council chambers tonight, as the upper North Shore council meets to decide who will lead it for the next two years.

The two names supposedly in the running are Indu Balachandran (representing the Gordon ward) and Kim Wheatley (representing the Wahroonga ward). The current mayor is Christine Kay.

The split: The pair represent opposing sides on multiple council matters. Balachandran supports natural turf and campaigned to save Marian Street Theatre, whereas Wheatley supports artificial turf and voted to dump the theatre redevelopment project. The two will likely draw supporters on the basis of these issues. 

But multiple councillors have also told the Lorikeet the race is changing by the hour. Some believe it won’t be until tonight’s 7pm meeting that they truly know who has mayoral ambitions. 

Councillor Smith, who claims he doesn’t plan to stand, told the Lorikeet it was “like watching a horse race”.

How does it work: In New South Wales, there are two ways a mayor is elected. In the first, the mayor is elected directly by the people during local council elections, and serves a four year term. In the second, councillors vote amongst themselves to decide who becomes mayor. 

Ku-ring-gai uses the second option, rotating mayors on a two-year term.

The mayoralty is not just an honorific. It comes with many special privileges, such as:

And of course, the role also comes with a much larger paycheque.

Contested: In recent council meetings, voting on major issues — such as the redevelopment of Norman Griffith Oval — have been split 5 – 5, and come down to the Mayors casting vote. As such, the changing of the guard this week could have major ramifications for Ku-ring-gai ratepayers.

If the council is split 5 – 5 on the election of a mayor, a name is drawn out of a hat. The last time this occurred was in 2021, resulting in the election of Cedric Spencer. 

Which way’s which? The Councillors of Ku-ring-gai can be highly divided along many lines — political party, personal grievances, position on artificial turf — and as such no clear voting bloc exists. 

While there are many Liberals sitting on Ku-ring-gai Council, none ran for election as official, party-endorsed Liberal councillors. Even if there was a formal party bloc, those Liberal-aligned councillors — Pettett, Ngai, Ward, Kay and formerly, Spencer — can often be at each other's throats.

“They're all splintered, none have the numbers” Councillor Cedric Spencer, a former senior Liberal said.

“[Mayor Christine Kay] doesn’t have more than 1 or 2, same with Sam [Ngai], same with Barbara [Ward]”.

Long time coming: The machinations have been going on for months. In August, an entire meeting was called for one councillor to change his vote on a particular issue, only for that councillor not to change their vote. Multiple councillors claimed that this major anti-climax was the result of behind-the-scenes dealings over the mayoralty. 

Councillor Matt Devlin claimed the mayoral election was taking a serious toll on the basic functionality of the council. He told the Lorikeet the past two months had been “the most toxic and frustrating period of my two years on Council”. 

“Larry Hand, eat your heart out”.

Christine Kay, Indu Balachandran, Kim Wheatley, Barbara Ward and Alec Tayor were contacted for comment.