MAX Boyd, the former long-term Tweed Mayor and a man who gave most of his adult years to public service, believes his life has always been mapped out for him, that "you're just following a path that someone's set out for you”.

He admits to being a Christian and, with the benefits of time and hindsight, recognises the foreboding he'd always sensed prior to a gangrene diagnosis in both of his legs, an illness that saw him lose his right leg in June 1967, when aged just 34, and manage to keep his left in October of the same year.

It was an outcome that would cause him to give up on a career as a dairy farmer and follow a different path, one more firmly planted in politics.

At 83, he now senses he's getting closer to the end than the beginning.

"But I've loved life,” he said, from his property overlooking Mt Warning, in the sitting room of the house he built beneath the cover of lush bushland, and on land his father gave him long ago because he couldn't afford to pay him money for his toil.

"And what I've gotten out of being born to good parents,” he continues.

"They were great people, and I've lived a full life, and a happy life, and I don't think there's anything that I could ever want for from my time in this world.”

Max Boyd served on the council from 1964-2005.

He was the youngest serving councillor until Reece Byrnes' current appointment.

His business card boasts he 'holds (the) record for most years served as a one-legged councillor' and he was part of a group that abolished divisions in the 1980s because he thought it might encourage councillors to act in the best interests of the whole shire and not one part of it.

One of his proudest achievements is helping establish the Tweed Regional Art Gallery.

But after so many years doing what he believed was "best” for the Tweed, it all came to a disappointing and controversial end in May 2005, when the sitting council was sacked by the State Government and administrators appointed, of which Mr Boyd was one.

He said some of the council were too close to developers. Former Tweed Shire councillor Dot Holdom explained it differently to the Daily News in 2007.

"None of us deserved to be there,” she said.

"We were like a pack of unruly children... self-serving little snots. The interests of the residents were never a priority.”

Mr Boyd said the end had been a long time coming.

Over many years, developers behind projects such as SALT, Casuarina Beach, Kings Forest and others had been pushing their causes, he said, and the future of the shire was beginning to look vastly different to the one many had come to love.

"They were (sacked because they were) playing silly buggers with these developers,” he said.

"There was far too much familiarity between some councillors and these developers... it went on for years.

"The (government) thought they were too close to the developers and there were inquires before we were sacked. There was two, one was a local government inspector and there was a commission of inquiry.”

Reports in the TDN from the time indicate a group of six councillors accepted the support of developers provided under the banner of a group known as Tweed Direction.

The councillors have always maintained innocence and said donations were declared. The Daly Inquiry "found Tweed Directions had raised somewhere between $467,238 and $632,970 to support their cause of pro-development in the shire. Of this, 98.4% came from the property industry - 70% of which came from donors based outside of the Tweed”.

The mayor at the time of the sacking was Warren Polglase, who continues to serve on council with strong community support.

He was part of the band of six who, it was claimed, accepted Tweed Direction support.

He dismissed suggestions he was aligned with developers and later said "Tweed voters were 'not happy' with the State Government's interference and the 12 major recommendations of the Daly Inquiry into the former council had 'never been carried out' (because) 'they had no substance'”.

"I do feel Tweed is under threat by some of these projects,” Mr Boyd said.

"I just hope and pray the people in council from here on in love the place as much as I do and come to the conclusion there is an optimal number of people you can put in the Tweed without ruining it.”

He claims those who backed the developments paved the way for smaller roads and house blocks to maximise return for those pushing the estates.

He also claims those who opposed the projects fought for 'greener' inclusions, like vegetation to remain between houses and the beach at Casuarina.

With time to reflect on his life, Mr Boyd said his integrity's intact.

A career dedicated to serving the community can be a thankless job, and he said he never made much money from it.

It has sometimes come at great personal cost, and that is something part of him struggles with.

"I've had the best wife that any man could ever wish to have,” he said.

"The only regrets I have is that I spent so much of my time away from my family and that's something I was torn between, my work taking me away and the fact that I wasn't seeing as much of my children and my wife as I would have liked to have done.

"They're the biggest regrets. But I hope that I can leave this world with my name unimpeached and stand high and tall. I feel I've done my bit.”