Re: Strong Mayor Powers

I read with interest your recent Editorial in the January 15‘“ edition and I would like to offer a different perspective.

Your suggestion that a mayor who chooses not to use strong mayor powers will in fact become a weak mayor, because as you suggest, the very priorities they campaigned on, are less achievable if they have to get a majority of the council to support them. Every member of council has their priorities when they seek municipal office and theirs including the mayors will not all be met.

Strong mayor powers were put in place by the province in the hope that municipalities using these powers could cut through red tape and magically help the province meet their target of 150,000 new homes a year over a 10-year period. While many mayors would gladly support new housing development in their respective municipalities, they will likely have campaigned on a broad range of issues that l believe will lie well outside what the strong mayor powers were intended to achieve.

The impact for a Council and the citizens where the mayor proposes to use these powers is significant. A mayor by virtue of the office typically has some level of influence over members of Council in the decisions that are made but until recently their vote could be overruled by a simple majority voting against the mayor.

The system of municipalities came about with the passage of The Baldwin Act in 1849, so for slightly more than 175 years the reeve/mayors vote held the same weight as other members of

Council and the vote of the majority of the members carried the day. That is no longer the case if the mayor chooses to adopt the strong powers. In a nine-member council, if the mayor has three councilors prepared to support him regularly, they can essentially do whatever they like even though a majority of councilors oppose those decisions. ln my view this clearly goes against the traditional democratic system and significantly diminishes the value of a councilor. This may further discourage good candidates seeking municipal office.

It has been my experience while serving on several municipal councils, that these councils do best when members are encouraged to contribute to the debate and their comments are respected and valued. Collaboration and compromise make for better policy and municipal decisions overall ln my view any mayor who is not prepared to respect the opinions of the majority of Council demeans the office and the democratic process.