Renfrewshire's provost has encouraged elected members to challenge the "poor opinion" many have of politicians by working together to create a better life for people in the area.
Councillor Lorraine Cameron, believed to be the first to hold the position for back-to-back terms, reflected on the "multitude of talent" across the council and called for "positivity" in the chamber at the beginning of the new term.
The veteran politician, who was first elected as a ward councillor in 1999, was returned as provost on Thursday – despite the Labour group nominating Councillor Chris Gilmour for the position.
After winning 23 of 43 votes, Councillor Cameron took the chair and made a statement to the chamber.
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She said: "As your provost it's my duty to represent Renfrewshire to the very best of my abilities and I hope that I have done that in the past five years – well, certainly three of those years.
"The provost finds themselves in different social situations, civic life, having to make charitable contributions, and in promotion of our towns and villages as places to invest, work, play and live.
"We all know that a proportion of the public have a poor opinion of politicians and in most cases, I have to say, quite rightly so.
"But I would love us in this new council to try to change their minds, to let us show them that we can work together to produce a better quality of life for them and their families.
"Nobody expects us to be angels, there will be disagreements – absolutely there will be. It wouldn't be fun without the disagreements to be honest, between the groups and the political course of some of our policies.
"But please let those disagreements be ones that seek to really assist with the deliver of the services to our communities.
"I would be very happy to lead a cooperative, hard-working and forward thinking team of councillors through the next five years."
Provost Cameron urged the council to show a number of the younger elected members that it was "worthwhile" standing for election.
She added: "We have a multitude of talent and skill within our elected members team, so let's put that to good use and try to abolish the negative political styles of the past of this council, because sometimes it's been really horrid and I don't want to go back to that.
"We want to really try hard to bring positivity and encouragement to this chamber and show the younger members among us today that it was worthwhile putting that effort into getting elected."
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