Eddy Ostarcevic has won the race to become the seventh member of the Northern Grampians Shire Council after being confirmed as the winner of the Kara Kara ward by-election on Friday.
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The Victorian Electoral Commission confirmed the engineer and entrepreneur was the winner of the race by a significant margin.
Mr Ostarcevic said he was surprised with the result, but is looking forward to helping put some of his plans into action.
"I was surprised with the way the vote went, I am genuinely surprised," he said.
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"I am also pleased, there is a lot of different emotions but I am pleased the people voted for me, but I think the one word is surprised."
"I am also really chuffed that Stuart Mill got 75 per cent of the vote, between Timmy and myself.
"I think it is important to work towards engaging younger people with businesses in the town.
"First and foremost we need to give the younger folks in our town somewhere work. It is crazy they don't have an opportunity in their own town if they want to stay here and so I will be chasing up a number of opportunities.
"It is the first thing that is in my mind, it is the thing I am focussed on, it is the entrepreneurial spirit and make this shire a place for businesses to join."
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Earlier in February, Mr Ostarcevic said he wanted to help the council grow the region by focusing on its strengths.
"It will remain a secret that we are a great place to live and work and we have a lot of things in our Shire that we are proud of and we have got to start yelling that from the top of our roofs."
Mr Ostarcevic's election to the council will be declared at a service at St Arnaud Town Hall on Monday, March 1 at 9am.
The Stuart Mill resident of 21 years won the race convincingly claiming first preference on 53 per cent of the 2139 votes which formally counted.
Timmy Heydon was a distant second with 23 per cent of the first preference vote, Catriona Thoolen received 15 per cent and Terence Robertson scored just eight per cent.
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