Mayor & councillors
Towong Shire is unsubdivided: there are no wards, and all five councillors are elected by the whole Shire, by proportional representation, at the four-yearly Victorian council elections (last held in October 2024). The councillors then elect the Mayor and Deputy Mayor from among themselves.
New to these terms? Read them in plain English
- How the mayor is chosen
- Either elected directly by voters, or chosen by the councillors.
- Ward
- A subdivision of a council area that elects its own councillors.
- Local Government Area (LGA)
- The official area a council governs.
Who represents you
- Mayor
- Cr Peter TolsherElected Mayor by the councillors on 26 November 2025 for a one-year term. He had been Deputy Mayor since the 2024 mayoral election, was elected to the council in October 2024 and previously served as a councillor from 2016 to 2020. Lives in Tallangatta.
- Deputy Mayor
- Cr Denise AndersonElected Deputy Mayor on 26 November 2025 for a one-year term. First elected in October 2020 and re-elected in October 2024. Lives in Bellbridge.
- Councillors
- 5, elected Shire-wide (no wards)Cr Andrew Whitehead (first elected 2016; Mayor for the four years to November 2025), Cr David Wortmann (first elected 2008; six terms as Mayor) and Cr Jon Pitman (first elected 2024), plus the Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
- How the Mayor is chosen
- Elected by the councillors, not by votersIn Victorian councils the councillors decide who will be mayor (the City of Melbourne, whose voters elect the Lord Mayor, is the exception). Towong's current Mayor and Deputy Mayor were elected on 26 November 2025 for one-year terms, so the next mayoral election is due around November 2026; the council had not published its date as at 29 September 2026.
- Council meetings
- Generally the fourth Wednesday of the monthMeetings are live-streamed on the council's YouTube channel; agendas and minutes are on its Council meetings page. The public can submit questions for public question time.
Your representatives
Peter Tolsher
Mayor
Denise Anderson
Deputy Mayor / Councillor
Andrew Whitehead
Councillor
David Wortmann
Councillor
Jon Pitman
Councillor
Want to raise something? Contacting your ward councillor or the mayor is one of the most direct ways to be heard between elections.
Victorian council ballot papers and results don't show party affiliation, so we don't label councillors. We list who is in office and link to their official profiles and the election results. The council's councillor pages also list a phone number for each councillor. The Victorian Electoral Commission's council page lists the same five councillors, and its by-elections and countbacks timeline shows none for Towong since the October 2024 election (checked September 2026). All five councillors attended the 23 September 2026 council meeting. A council's makeup can change between elections, so the official pages have the most current list.
Sources — check it yourself
- Towong Shire Council — Meet your councillors · Sep 2026
- Towong Shire Council — 2025 Mayoral Election Results (media release, 26 Nov 2025) · 26 Nov 2025
- Towong Shire Council — Council Plan 2025–2029 (PDF; councillor profiles) · 2025
- Towong Shire Council — Ordinary Council Meeting minutes, 23 September 2026 (unconfirmed, PDF) · 23 Sep 2026
- Victorian Electoral Commission — Towong Shire Council (current councillors) · Sep 2026
- Victorian Electoral Commission — 2024 Towong Shire Council election results · 22 Nov 2024
- Victorian Electoral Commission — Council by-elections and countbacks timeline · Sep 2026
- Towong Shire Council — Meetings and public question time · Sep 2026
Figures are current as at the dates shown and may change — always confirm with the linked source. See the notice at the bottom of the page for full details and how to report a correction.