It was no surprise that Eber Butron was announced as Lismore City Council's new General Manager by Mayor Steve Krieg today.

"Very exciting times, to be here today to ratify Lismore Council's General Manager (GM), and it's someone that most people through the Lismore LGA would probably already know, and that's Eber Butron," Mayor Krieg told media out the front of Council chambers.

Mr Butron has been acting GM since Jon Gibbons resigned in March for personal reasons. He has been with Lismore City Council for four and a half years in a planning, partnerships and engagement role.

"We've been through the recruitment process, and I've got to say, it's been quite a rigorous recruitment process with some exceptional candidates, but to see someone internally in our organisation be promoted through to become General Manager is really, really pleasing," the mayor said.

"It shows you the depth that Lismore City Council has been building over the last three or four years through our executive team, and it's a credit to Eber in the work that he's put in to the organisation to now progress into the top job."

There were three councillors on the recruitment panel: Mayor Krieg, Deputy Mayor Jeri Hall and Councillor Big Rob. The vote was unanimous at last night's council meeting, with Cr Virginia Waters on leave.

Mr Butron addressed the media by saying he was feeling a lot of emotions today.

"One of them is feeling honoured," he said, "For the mayor and councillors to actually make the decision and give me the task of leading the organisation forward over the next four years. So, that's really exciting. The other emotion really is excitement. I think we're at the precipice of a lot of good things that can actually happen in Lismore. So, I'm really excited in relation to the challenges moving forward, externally and from an operational perspective. But I think there's really good times ahead for Lismore."

Mr Butron has about 30 years of experience in local government across four states, and has 20-plus years of experience from an executive perspective. He has worked in various-sized councils, including the Gold Coast, Townsville, Fairfield City, the Tweed, and Lismore.

When asked to identify what exciting times lie ahead for Lismore, flood mitigation was at the top of the list.

"From an external perspective, and I guess one of the topical issues at the moment is flood mitigation. There was a paper released by the CSIRO last week, and I think, from an advocacy perspective, the next 12 months is really critical for Lismore. I think we need to be in that space of supporting the CSIRO in terms of the next steps, in terms of modelling flood mitigation to actually drive Lismore's economic growth and prosperity into the future.

"And from my perspective, from an organisation perspective, it's really providing the mayor and councillors with information so they can advocate at a state and federal government level to actually fund future flood mitigation measures, to actually support future growth for Lismore.

"Operationally, we've got a great team within the organisation. We've got fantastic leaders, supported by a great team. There's challenges, as all local governments are facing at this point in time, and that includes financial sustainability. We need to actually review our processes. We need to review our business. We need to be a lot more customer-centric. We need to streamline processes to make it easier for the community, for the development of industry and for other stakeholders to actually access Council.

"The other topical item, really, is roads. There's this fantastic challenge in relation to actually fixing our roads. We've looked at it strategically. We've got a fantastic team to look at it, and you will see the condition of our roads being rebuilt and being maintained, and that should markedly increase over the next couple of years.

"From a strategic perspective, I think we need to provide ourselves some growth. We're working on reviewing our growth strategies, our local planning statements, our economic development strategies, so we can do a lot internally in terms of making ourselves financially sustainable, but we need to look outward in terms of what's our future growth, and if we can actually sort of grow our rate base, then that goes a long way in terms of actually making us sustainable in the long term."

The inevitable question about GM turnover and stability in the GM position was asked. After all, the history of Lismore City Council GM's has been unstable.

"I had a conversation with some of the staff today and made the announcement just prior to this conversation with yourselves. A lot of the commentary coming from the staff was a bit of relief, and they're excited, and a lot of the words that came out of their mouths were around stability. I've been with council for four and a half years. I've been through the ups and downs. I've been through the 2022 floods, and we're coming out of that, and there's a lot of opportunity moving forward, but one thing that the staff do want is stability, and I think they see stability in myself and the appointment of having someone that's been in the organisation the last four and a half years."

Mr Butron confirmed he has signed a four-year contract this morning.

Mayor Steve Krieg was asked about the benefits of an internal appointment rather than another GM coming from outside of the area and the organisation.

"I can't remember, in my time, an internal appointment, and it was something, as a recruitment panel, we discussed. We had some excellent candidates, really strong applicants, and I said to Eber it wasn't a cut-and-dry decision for the panel, but one thing that was really in his favour was the fact that he's been here for an extended period already. The staff know him. He knows the organisation. If we had contacted one of the other applicants today, then they need a month to resign from their other job and relocate to the area, and then they want to sit in a chair and observe the organisation before they make any decisions. So, you're probably looking at four to six months before you really see any activity from your general manager.

"One of the things, as councillors, we really looked at Eber as someone who has been here for four and a half years already, he knows the immediate work that can be done as of today. We signed the contract this morning. He is in that role as of today, and he can start with that work immediately as the permanent General Manager and I'm not discounting any of the other applicants, but it was something that we discussed internally as a recruitment panel to make sure that Lismore City Council as an organisation is best placed sooner rather later."