"I'm very humbled and very delighted to be mayor."
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Mayor Maree Statham has been mayor once before and she has learnt a lot from her time in council and is once again committed to doing her best for Lithgow.
"I realise the significance of the vote that our team received and I'm very grateful for that," Ms Statham said in part one of her interview with the Lithgow Mercury about the regions future.
"I've made a big promise to myself that I won't let them down, it's going to be a hard 12 months financially for Council, however, we need to show people that we are having a go."
Mayor Statham would love to see Lithgow come into its own in the next few years.
"Previously Lithgow was branded as a coal mining town and I'm proud to say that, my husband was a coal miner for 20-odd years and it's been very kind to most families in this area, however, we have to look to decentralise and I think our branding, now, moving forward, should be one of quite a vast difference to has been before," she said.
One of the ideas Mayor Statham had was to start shopping locally so that Lithgow's statistics will improve so big businesses will have faith in the industry and more shops can open.
"I was only thinking the other day, it's very difficult to get people to come and shop because we don't have the demographics," she said.
"When I was mayor previously, I did a lot of research regarding economic development, in terms of how do we get Officeworks here, Priceline, how do we get those stores here?
"I think we need to urge all business owners to treat this as their investment for the future. You know, we have to try and sell this go in a slightly different way to what's been sold before and I'm not saying it's been wrong before. But I think now is the time to step up."
Mayor Statham said the most important thing they have to do now is to encourage the businesses that have gone through this hard time to believe in themselves and believe in Lithgow.
"They can have faith that the next six months will be better than the last," she said.
"I'm hearing little whispers here and there of some great things happening."
One of those things is a new Bunnings coming to town.
"I feel like a little ignition has lit a spark and we have to continue growing it and very carefully, making sure that we can cope with the growth and the demand. So we don't have any problems."
Mayor Statham said it was important to make Lithgow a place that Sydneysiders would want to visit or live.
"I just know how many new people I've met in the last six months that have relocated from the Mountains or from Sydney," she said.
"We have the wonderful bullet train service that people can still relocate to Sydney for a couple of days. We've got an airport not too far away and I believe we're at a crossover and right now is the most important few years of the future of our town."
Mayor Statham said it was important to make sure residents that are out of work and people that want to live in Lithgow can get work.
"This is essential, and I think the first thing we need to do after we finish presenting Lithgow really well, is working on upskilling people, it will be a journey there's no doubt about it," she said.
Not even three months into her term as mayor and Cr Statham has already kicked some goals that she wanted to achieve.
"I'm really delighted to say that every counsellor voted for the changes that I've put forward without hesitation and that has set us for a much brighter time in the chambers," she said.
"It was it was a hostile council and now it's not that, so that was my first goal."
Another goal Mayor Statham has beside the presentation of the town is to see a walking track between Portland and Wallerawang.
"We saw a committee formed for that which I'm headed up and proud to do so," she said.
"I would like to see all the villages reach out. Any village that wants us to go and visit them as a group and have a meeting with them we can do that."
Road upkeep is also something Mayor Statham would like to see Lithgow City Council get on top of.
"I think we need to keep pushing forward and putting out ideas into the Sydney area of what you can have here and still commute to Sydney if you need to for work. So I think looking at a better road is important," she said.
"The road upkeep has been horrendous with the weather. So I hope in the future that we can look forward to seeing better roads, mowing on a regular basis and new signage at the entrance to Lithgow."
Mayor Statham would also like to see them pick up their tourism game.
"I believe the Seven Valleys has not been actually sold in the best way possible. I've learned a lot about the branding of Seven Valleys and it's got nothing to do with changing the name of the Lithgow which was what everyone thought it was," she said.
"I think the ideal way to put that on the platform would be to have two representatives from each Valley, on the committee, with perhaps the mayor and the deputy mayor or with senior Council tourism officers and we can work out how you want your valley to be promoted, what have you got that some of the other valley's don't."
Mayor Statham said moving forward the main thing is the council keeps cohesive.
"We need to have great discussion and debate but as long as we feel that we're kicking the ball in a very similar way, then it will be easy for council to negotiate through things that's been difficult before," she said.
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