Unfortunately I have to leave the Sacred Grove, cross the Menai Straights and travel away from the Island for a few days so blogging is likely to be light (although every time I have wrote that in the past I have actually ended up posting more than usual). However, before I go here is a question I would like to pose you all as part of our ongoing Peoples Manifesto project, namely: Does Ynys Môn need an elected Mayor?
If so:
- What value could an elected Mayor bring?
- What would be the Mayor's duties, role and responsibilities?
- How would the Mayor's role differ from that of the Council Leader (Clive McGregor) or Council MD (David Bowles)? Or even from either our MP (Albert Owen) or AM (Ieuan Wyn Jones)?
- Would the Mayor be able to take on the role of an elected 'independent ombudsman' to scrutinise the actions of the council and hold them to account?
- How would the Mayor be elected? what would be the term of office?
- Or do you believe that an elected Mayor would create more duplication, more costs and yield little in return?
Please do let me know what you think.
Also, several people have already directly edited and added to our crowd-sourced Peoples Manifesto document which I uploaded online yesterday. If you have anything you would like to add to the document please do feel free to edit it directly:
URL: http://123.writeboard.com/e9631967ac8ef7be3
Password: druid
Remember: Anglesey needs you!
27 comments:
A resolute "no!"
Too much power in one person's hands. Where mayors are popular and claimed to be successful, it is often at the expense of other people's views and, in the US, of civil liberties.
In general, mayors tend to come to represent mob culture and so demonstrate extremist views.
You must be taking part in that big one thing across the water then, you know with whats his name again, not our Terry, and not the ginger one - No ! the other one. Careful don't bend 2 low when picking up the litter. Aluminum cans go a mint.
I may be wrong, but somehow the island seems to small to have an elected mayor (compare to number of people the Mayor of Greater London represents). However, I suppose at least the major parties would put forward candidates, whether this is good I will let others decide.
Mayor - what a nice idea - can i propose Druid for Mayor - shouldnt cost much and having an accountable office to take responsibility for the council seems to make sense - a figure for promoting Anglesey with a positive countenance
i was going to ask the Druid what he/she thinks about setting up a forum for what people perceive as local misdeeds - i mean, i hear numerous rumours about planning applications being refused only to be later bought out and developed by council members and officers and various other difficult to "prove" (but so obvious to see) anomalies of life on the island - maybe a mayor could don the crown of "corruption" czar or something similar?
"maybe a mayor could don the crown of "corruption" czar or something similar"
Might work, but I suspect the petty little men would soon tear the poor person to shreds.
SERIOUS SUGGESTION -- PETER ROGERS FOR MAYOR ?
Anon 19.15
Nonsense...it has to be Elwyn Schofield, the Godfather !
OFF TOPIC: You should switch your comment box to the pop-up version, the embedded box version has a bug which means Firefox users lose their post when trying to preview it (as I just did!!).
There's a discussion about the problem here:
https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/forum/1/190823
I've had that and I'm using Windows IE.
I always select all text and copy before going to a new box/screen/page
- well I wish I did.
Pete Rogers was the Sheriff of Gwynedd
Where's Judge Dread when you need him?
:-)
And who would Peter's maid Marian be ?
We've got mayor's for Holyhead and Llangefni. don't know about Amlwch or Beaumaris = but we've already got mayors a plenty - so my vote is not for a mayor at county level.
I do think that an independent scrutiny body would help restore the lack of trust in the current scrutiny bodies, namely the Ombudsman, the IOACC internal complaints officers and the local police. (see various Anon comments in earlier threads)
The question is how to appoint 'a few good (wo)men'
I've been a member of monitoring bodies locally, and in my opinion, how well the body functions depends largely on the calibre of the chief elected officers (chair and secretary) and especially the non elected officers.
Unfortunately it takes longer to build trust than it does to lose it.
Additionally, Public Relations need to use local media channels to inform everyone of the good work that has been done.
An opportune moment me thinks to remind us all of the good work the vast majority of council workers do - in the public or private sector - be they teachers, cleaners, cooks or administrators, to name just a few, who day in day out without question deliver the service we demand and expect. Hopefully we do not need PR to remind us of this.
If Peter Rogers became Mayor I think that would be really good for Anglesy - as the electorate could then see what its like to have an absolute idiot speaking on our behalf. I can see that this blog has now moved from praising PR as an election hopeful (and now that his electioneering days are well and truly over - hopefully) to trying to find a role for him on a council where he appears to be completely ignored and isolated - probably because people see him for what he really is and stands for.
"as the electorate could then see what its like to have an absolute idiot speaking on our behalf"
...which is only one step worse than the present system of several idiots speaking on our (yet peculiarly not our) behalf!
Anon 20:32 - sorry I didn't realise that it was an issue. I have now changed comments to the pop-up box system as you suggested.
I cant speak for Peter Rogers, he can do that himself. But hopefully he will say more that "I make no promises" as he did in his election pamhplet.
Whether he would be a good Mayor who knows, some may not agree, and that's the main problem (as I have said before) the island is to small to have an effective mayor.
We cannot have a Mayor because we do NOT have a democracy on this Island, there are too many political partieswith no guidance and goalsonly self indulgence and selfish needs,we need change, a new way of doing things, a new way of living together,because if we don't we will never survive, the old ways and political thinking have brought this Island to it's knees, we need a new party, a party for the people, and a leader that will take back that, that was taken away from the people by force. Mayor NO!, DEMOCRACY YES!!!
Druid - produce, proclaim and promote your so called people's manifesto and then see what happens - come on let's see what people really think about your Anglesey masterplan - which excludes and denigrates the language of the majority of this wonderful island people and enclave.
And there's another rub: reduce absolutely everything to us and them, English and Welsh.
Here's the news: not all Welsh people hate Englishers. Not all Englishers hate the Welsh. Thankfully, this petty 'othering' only appears infrequently here, so let's try an keep it that way.
An Anglesey person, born, bred, and first language Welsh. Except I haven't got the narrow village mentality, thank God. Books, see? They let you escape your surroundings and broaden your horizons. For all I've seen, the biggest stirrers are the so-called Welsh who've spent their lives in England making a packet, then retired back here to try and tell us what to do with the place!
Based on all these comments, I think we can conclude that on balace commenters don't think that Anglesey needs an elected Mayor.
Not so much don't want as have too many already - Beaumaris, Holyhead, Llangefni
We should have a Mayor with the power to have a commitee to oversee bad practice and bad politics with the right to sack the prats we have at the moment.
Druid, you are so cruel!
It looks as though poor Barrie will have wasted his time and hours of Anon blogging if he is not to become Mayor. He would be fantastic, he could get Paddy French back as his deputy. Paddy French was of course totally unbiased, but whose house was it he stayed in in Ffordd Cynlais?
His Sister's
I have noticed that some people are claiming on here that we already have several mayors on Anglesey but they seem to be forgetting these are honorary mayors which means they don’t have authority.
I think the point Druid was making was wether we should have an “elected” mayor with executive powers like Boris in London.
And my answer is no - because I think the Leader of the Council is supposedly already fulfilling the job a mayor would be required to do, and there are too may council positions needing to be cut anyway. Having said that I think there is space to discuss what benefit an elected mayor could bring to Anglesey.
Macaron
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