A belated hat tip goes to fellow blogger Tawe Talk for flagging up an intriguing new piece of information on Swansea Council’s website.
Readers are advised that “Anyone can organise a petition to call for a referendum for a directly elected mayor. Upon receiving a valid petition, a Council must hold a binding referendum on proposals for executive arrangements involving a directly elected mayor.”
A petition needs to bear signatures from 10% of local government electors in the area – which works out as something over 18,867 for Swansea. A valid petition would then trigger a referendum on whether the majority of citizens would want to dump the present cabinet system in favour of a single, accountable directly elected mayor.
The notice helpfully adds that petitions can only be submitted during a specific six month period starting twelve months before the next local government elections, i.e. from May to November 2011.
Nearly 19,000 names sounds like a big ask but not so arduous when you think of the numbers who joined a Facebook campaign last year to preserve the Big Apple at Mumbles. The only question is whether a real opportunity in deciding how the city is run would actually generate as much interest.
2 Comments:
Directly elected mayors with the change that it would bring to any town's administration is something not to be wished for. It reduces the role and power of local councillors and makes a farce of any real democratic accountability to the council. Regardless of the circumstances I would vote no always against the Nepolionic bypass of democracy.
You have to ask yourself what happened to the “hot debate” on Cardiff having an elected mayor. Truth is there was no real debate city wide about it. I realize living 3000 miles way how would I know? Its simple it’s Facebook and Twitter, as well as talking to family. My mother (who is a dedicated voter) had not heard about this “hot topic”. The reason why is to paraphrase James Carville “It’s the media stupid”. There is no city wide “conversation” about this, its all in the heads of the bloggers, and the wider media has chosen not to run with it, because it doesn’t sell papers! I read a tweet from Cllr Cerys Furlong that said that public was not interesting in changing Cardiff’s city government based on poll of 101 people on Wales online, hardly a large or scientific sample of opinion, so why would Cllr Furlong dismiss it based not only on a really ridiculous poll, and a lack of a wider debate. You could take it at face value, because she thinks that an elected mayor concentrates power in the hands of one person.
However still the people of Cardiff should have a right to debate how their frontline services are run. Jonathan Morgan began this debate, and he seems to be “missing in action” over it. According his blog post Cardiff needed this urgently. Yet even he has lost interest in the project with the speculation that he had only brought it up because he might lose his seat to a very strong Julie Morgan.
Cardiff I believe it would be more like 24000 ( I have seen smaller, however I think that they thought it was based on 5% and not 10% which after discovering that the hard work may have put them off)
I do think it’s a shame that people in wales get more bent out of shape over fields, parks, and having their kids attend Victorian asbestos ridden schools, than looking forward. Its true that in America we vote in small numbers (though I think turn out here is about the same as in the UK now) for every office, however there is not the apathy here that one finds at home, and along with a local newspaper Dodge City that is more widely read than the Echo, and radio and TV stations that at least have nearly 21/2 hours of local news a day, people know what is going on, especially in the schools.
I think that people at home (Wales) are not really apathetic, they are just resigned to fact that politicians really in general look after their selves, and nobody else , and that they will do what they like anyhow.
But maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel?
Sorry jaxx to have taken up so much of your space with my prattle!
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