Cr North said he was stepping aside to provide some stability on council by ensuring we did not end up with our third mayor in just six months.

There’s no doubt a realisation he did not have the numbers to finally become the mayor helped his decision, but it was still the right thing to do.

A number of councillors have already taken issue with the claim that this is a council of nine people but four factions, so now is the time to prove that claim wrong.

The race for the mayoral chains has been one of the more fiercely contested battles in recent years with up to four councillors testing the numbers over the past week.

At the same time, there has been a behind-the-scenes bid to keep Bobby Bourke away from the deputy mayoralty despite him topping the poll at the September 9 election.

But all that will soon be forgotten if there is a quick, clean vote for both mayor and deputy on Wednesday night and the councillors then knuckle down to the job of guiding and shaping the city rather than settling personal scores.

Leading the way so far has been newcomer Alex Christian.

Cr Christian may be inexperienced on council but he has already displayed a pragmatism that can be a powerful tool within the chamber.

While conceding he was politically most aligned with Cr North, Cr Christian was quick to throw his support behind Cr Hanger once it was clear that’s how the numbers were going to fall.

Cr Christian and Cr Hanger start the new term with very different ideas of what should be done to fix the Suttor, Mitre and Lambert streets intersection – one of Cr Christian’s key election platforms – but he is allowing that to be a debate for another day.

We remember too well the split on council following the shock election of Cr Monica Morse as mayor in 2012 and those wounds never fully healed.

What we don’t need is for the new council to get off on the same toxic footing and if Cr North and Cr Christian’s actions on Tuesday allow that to happen, then they should both be congratulated.

And if that’s not how it plays out between now and 6pm Wednesday, then strap yourselves in for three more interesting years.