It’s a new year and Orange has a new mayor, but one who is no stranger to the city’s council chambers.

Lifetime Orange local and long-serving councillor, Jason Hamling, was officially declared mayor on 21 December, after a competitive electoral race. Cr Hamling replaces Reg Kidd, who stepped down last year after a council career spanning more than three decades.

Cr Hamling, a former television news cameraman and now transfer business owner, has served on Orange City Council since 2004, when he was elected on the ticket of former Orange Mayor John Davis.

For the past 17 years, he has chaired Council’s sport and recreation committee and has now spent five years heading the crime committee.

“I love the city,” said Cr Hamling, whose time behind the camera interviewing councillors inspired him to throw his own hat in the ring.

“Doing positive things for the city drives you. Being in charge of, say, the sport and recreation committee, we’ve had some big gains; we’ve brought a lot of sport out to Orange and we built the indoor swimming pool, we built the PCYC, numerous playground upgrades and now the exciting thing is the new sporting precinct.”

Cr Hamling is eager to see construction of the $25 million sports precinct and parklands alongside the Sir Jack Brabham sportsgrounds get underway. The Western Regional Planning Panel (WRPP) is set to meet on 1 February to consider the latest Development Application for the controversial project.

“During the election, what I heard from a lot of people was: ‘Where is this sporting precinct up to?’ and ‘Why wasn’t it built?’ So hopefully we’ll have a decision in early February and then it’s full steam ahead.” said Cr Hamling.

“That will be fantastic for Orange and the region, not only sport — culturally. You’ll be able to have markets out there and there’s a synthetic athletics track out there which the Little Athletics in Orange have been crying out for for years and years and years!

“So for that sort of project to go ahead — and Orange not having to put any money in, it is a fully-funded $25 million from the state government — that is a project that’s very exciting for the future!”

Cr Hamling is one of just four previously serving councillors to return to the council chambers this year, the others being Cr’s Kevin Duffy, Tony Miletto, and Jeff Whitton. Joining them will be newly-elected councillors Jack Evans, Glenn Floyd, Tammy Greenhalgh, Frances Kinghorne, Steven Peterson, Melanie McDonnell, Gerald Power and David Mallard.

“What I’m hoping, as the new mayor and what the people of Orange want, is positivity. They want to see a council who wants to move Orange forward — and that’s not saying other councils haven’t; the previous mayor has done a great job and previous mayors and previous councils have done a fantastic job,” said Cr Hamling.

“We’ve got eight brand new councillors, they’re all new, they’ve got to learn the ropes and so do I. I’ve never been mayor before, so there will be a lot of learning going on in the first six months. Sure, we are not going to agree on everything, but positivity is what I’m looking for in the council chambers.”