Boosting civic pride, new events & engaging youth among goals of new Bunbury Mayor Jaysen De San Miguel

After joining council eight years ago because his cricket club was struggling to find support from the council, Jaysen De San Miguel would never have imagined the journey would see him land the City of Bunbury top job. But now the new leader is ready to bring a fresh face and attitude to reinvigorate the city. “I wanted to make a difference, that’s why I got on eight years ago,” Mr De San Miguel said. “I thought this was a great chance now that I have experience to do this and know I have respect of current councillors to take the leap for Mayor.” As the city’s youngest ever Mayor, Mr De San Miguel wants to help engage the younger community to bridge the disconnect. “If people realise things are happening in Bunbury, they’ll take more interest and pride and people will want to stay here,” Mr De San Miguel said. “We know there’s the ongoing issue of people finishing school and going to Perth or moving away and that’s always going to be there ... hopefully we can engage people to realise Bunbury is pretty cool and that means people will stay and might also draw people to Bunbury. “We’ve got a lot of opportunities here now ... I know there’s a lot of industries screaming out for work.” Born and raised in Bunbury, the 30-year-old said the city had gone through a lot of changes over the years but was still overcoming a misconception that there was not much happening here. “The city is at a strongly-placed position to continue to do well and I want to keep pushing that to lead to greater developments and events happening around the city and a lot of civic pride coming on,” he said. “I want to get people excited about what’s happening in Bunbury and push past the incorrect persona of Bunbury that nothing happens around here and get people instead going that Bunbury’s a place to be, live and visit — and I’m hoping my election can create that interest in the place.” Mr De San Miguel wants to see more development and events brought to Bunbury to help bolster tourism and business. “We have a lot to be proud of in Bunbury and need to make sure it’s all on the map,” he said. With experience as Deputy Mayor and councillor under his belt, Mr De San Miguel is ready to face community issues head on, including the age-old issue of homelessness in Bunbury. “This is something the City won’t be able to solve by ourselves,” he said. “It’s going to need a huge collaboration between the City of Bunbury, State Government and not-for-profits. “There needs to be an approach between all things. There’s no point going in and saying were going to build this home and leaving it there — we tried that with the shelter and unfortunately without wrap-around services with it it didn’t work out, so it’s very important it’s a multi-approach. “I’m very happy to sit at the table with that and have discussions to see what we can achieve.” Mr De San Miguel said he wanted to be a leader who worked with councillors to push Bunbury in the best direction and maintain a transparent, open-door relationship with the community. “We don’t have all the ideas, the best ideas are out there in the community and we want to hear them and help facilitate them,” he said.