Influential city councillor grabs award

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision which led Orelia resident Sherilyn Wood to run for a seat on the City of Kwinana council in 2005.

A resident since the 1970s, Cr Wood said she ran for the council position out of pure curiosity, following the lead of her brother Dennis Wood.

“I was interested in what he (Dennis) was doing and I wanted to put back into the community,” she said.

“I didn’t make my mind up to run until about a week before the closing of nominations — I was flabbergasted I was actually elected.”

Holding her seat for almost eight years, Cr Wood said there were countless projects, meetings, and ideas she had been a part of but it was all the little changes behind the scenes which made her smile.

Her dedication to the City was recognised this month when she was awarded a WA Local Government merit award, an achievement she said was a surprise.

The award recognises elected members who have provided distinguished service to the community through their local government.

Cr Wood said two reasons she was put forward by her co-workers were her instigation of the City’s junior council and her idea to create the locality’s dog-friendly area Peace Park.

She said she was a big believer in teaching the younger generation the process of council and ensuring the spirit of Kwinana lived on.

“I was stunned — it was a bit embarrassing — I’m not the sort of person who likes to be singled out and have the spot light put on,” Cr Wood said.

“I like to do the work in the background and I don’t care if people don’t know about it as long as it’s done.”

A lover of animals, Cr Wood said the dog park was a “roaring” success and had become a valued part of the community, winning a Heart Health Award.

She said being a councillor was a job many people in the community often overlooked but was a responsibility she found to be worthwhile.

“There are lots of little things you can do that a lot of people never hear of or realise who did it, but you know you did it and that in itself is really good,” Cr Wood said.

She said she was lucky to be a part of a whole new way of thinking on the council, which inevitably led to the revitalisation of Kwinana coming to fruition.

“We went through a period where the people in Kwinana just accepted that they didn’t have all the facilities and the modern things that neighbours had,” Cr Wood said.

“Then there was a change of councillors — we had the numbers to say ‘this isn’t good enough for Kwinana, let’s do something about it’.”

Walking through the streets of the city nowadays, Cr Wood said it was a wonderful feeling to look at Kwinana city centre and how it had been transformed since she started all those years ago.

“People are feeling a lot more pride in the area than they did before,” she said.

A teacher for 39 years in the Kwinana and Rockingham areas, Cr Wood retired two years ago to focus on her role as a councillor and said she hoped the city would continue to flourish.