Lake Macquaruie City Council has a new deputy mayor - councillor Nick Jones.
The east ward councillor was elected through a ballot process at Monday night's ordinary meeting.
He will replace Cr David Belcher, who was nominated for reelection but did not progress through the voting process.
Before the ballot, Lake Macquarie council CEO Morven Cameron said there had been four nominations received for the year-long position.
They were west ward councillor David Belcher (Labor), north ward councillor Kevin Baker (Liberal), east ward councillor Nick Jones (Liberal) and north ward councillor Colin Grigg (Independent).
When Ms Cameron read the councillors' first round of votes there was a fairly even spread across the four nominees.
The process involved the nominee who received the least votes dropping out, before a new ballot was held to vote on those remaining.
Cr Grigg was dropped first, followed by Cr Belcher who was eliminated by having his named drawn from a hat after he had a tied number of votes with Cr Baker.
Cr Jones received nine votes in the final round and Cr Baker four.
Cr Jones has been on council since 2016. His new role as deputy mayor will involve representing the council in an official capacity when mayor Kay Fraser in unavailable, or when requested to do so by the mayor.
