Six new faces will be sitting in the Bass Coast Shire council chamber from Monday.

While the official announcement will be tomorrow (Friday) at 3pm, the final tally for the 2024 election is in.

As predicted, in Island Ward Ronnie Bauer will return to council, but David Rooks – who was the only other sitting councillor recontesting in Island Ward – has failed to get past the post.

Instead, Island Ward will be represented by Tim O’Brien and Tracey Bell.

Western Port Ward sees Jon Temby and Jan Thompson join returning councillor Rochelle Halstead.

In Bunurong Ward, Brett Tessari was once again voted back in to council, but both Leticia Laing and Les Ward failed in their bid.

The other two successful Bunurong candidates – who make up the total nine Bass Coast Shire councillors – are Meg Edwards and Mat Morgan.

Ronnie Bauer lead the count from the outset with 34.9 per cent of the primary vote (2606), which meant he was comfortably re-elected before preferences.

This was a jump in his first preference vote from the 2020 election, where he received 22.2 per cent.

Rochelle Halstead collected 32.6 per cent of first preference votes (2439), an increase on the 2020 election, where she received 26.5 per cent.

David Rooks’ first preference vote dropped from 21.1 per cent in 2020, to 11.6 per cent.

According to VEC figures, the Island Ward has 12,091 registered voters.

More details in next week’s paper.