“You can be rest assured I won’t be running,” he said last week.
“I’ve done it for two years in a row and four times altogether, so it’s time for somebody else to have a turn now,” he said.
Cr Bourke was a City of Werribee councillor from 1988 to 1994.
He served as the last mayor of the City of Werribee in 1994 and as the first mayor of the City of Wyndham in 1997-1998.
He became mayor in the same year he was elected to the council in 2005 and won a rare second successive term last December.
Last week, deputy mayor Heather Marcus and councillors Leigh Barrett, Henry Barlow and Mark Rose said they had no intention of taking up the post.
All cited similar reasons.
Without the added responsibilities as mayor, their “plates were already full” – with council duties, work and family commitments, they said.
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Cr Barrett said he would stand for mayor “at some stage”.
“You’ve got to have the time to do it,” he said.
“I’ll be seeking re-election next year, but at this particular time, I recognise and appreciate that there are others who can do the job more ably than I.”
Iramoo Ward councillor Cynthia Manson was the only councillor willing to indicate an interest in taking up the mayoral post.
“I’m always interested in representing the community, whether that is as a councillor or as mayor, or as deputy or chairing a committee,” she said.
While councillors Peter Ross and Kim McAliney were tight-lipped, they did not rule out the possibility of standing for mayor.
Councillor Bob Fairclough, who was narrowly defeated by Cr Bourke at last year’s ballot, declined to comment.
Cr Ross said: “There are a few people interested. There’s a lot of discussion happening.
“At the moment, it could be anybody.
“You need to be sure you’ve got the support, otherwise there’s no point, and I don’t think anybody has at the moment, so that’s probably where it is.
“There’s still nearly three weeks to go, so it’s a bit early to really make any predictions or for people to say whether they’re definite,” he said.
Cr McAliney said it was now a matter of “councillors coming together and working out who the next mayor is”.
“It will be decided in the next two to three weeks, but I know that all councillors, whoever it will be, will support the incoming mayor and deputy mayor,” she said.
