Kelly Sims Running for Glenorchy Mayor

Media release – Kelly Sims, 5 September 2022

Alderman Kelly Sims Announces Mayoral Election Bid

Kelly is an independent alderman endorsed by Bryan Dawe the well-known and respected Australian political commentator and comedian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awfpE1pF-sw.

Kelly doesn’t favour party politics and has no plans to use our local community as a career path or stepping stone into a state or federal role.

Kelly has a proven ability to stand up, speak truth to power and lead our community on important issues such as safety, homelessness, planning and development, climate change and improved opportunities for youth.

Kelly is a councillor for Glenorchy Tasmania with over 20 years of experience as a community & business leader across various sectors. She currently serves on the Glenorchy City Council; Glenorchy Planning Authority, Arts & Culture Advisory Committee & Healthy Communities Advisory Committee.

Kelly together with her sister Sarah Sims also established the fast-growing (now 3.8k members) and popular fb group ‘Hobart Rooms To Rent’ back in 2016, in aid of addressing the growing housing issue for friends and students locally – to begin with.

Kelly has a proven background in both national and state wide leadership within the mental health, sustainability, homelessness, community, education, business & adult training sectors. A key example is when she led a state wide project credited with removing a national priority for the early childhood sector for Tasmania in 2014. Kelly achieved this by successfully overseeing training development & resource provision tailored to empower key local leaders to better understand the balance of social, economic and environmental sustainability across services and business.

Kelly has qualifications in education, adult training, cultural competency, policy development & both small business & large organisational management. She has also worked as an event’s organiser responsible for TAS Autumn Fest (15k + patrons over 2 days) and as a state wide project manager for the Mental Health Foundation Australia in both 2020 & 2021 where she supported the state during the initial covid lockdown period by training staff at the Royal Hobart Hospital in mental health response & self-care. She also organised, hosted & reported-on the National MHFA Homelessness, Crime & Mental Health Symposiums both held in Tasmania October 2020 & 2021.

Kelly has a proven my track record for achieving nationally recognised outcomes in various sectors for Tasmania and has already proven her ability to speak up in her current role. She will be proactive on key issues, especially those that are impacting youth, safety, economic outcomes and councils’ bottom-line. The lack of opportunity for youth, the housing crisis and how this relates to current government policy, affordability and mental health are at the forefront of her current work. Her experience is predominately in leading communities, large teams and teaching high-level strategic governance to both educators and business leaders.

Kelly is not afraid to call out those who are trying to tilt the table of democracy for their own gain and said;

“I love the City of Glenorchy and we have so much economic and cultural potential right now, but the Council needs to grab the opportunity with proactive leaders who are truely independent, understand people and are much more transparent with our local community.

Another 4 years of poor leadership and stalling on important upkeep, services and projects will be far too late for our community. It’s time to improve our approach and genuinely connect with, while adequately servicing the grassroots again.

I’m dedicated to working hard with our team and using my experience to do just that!”