Another edict from the Mayor – makes you wonder why we have a Municipal Council if we have an autocrat in charge with Strong Mayor Powers (SMP)!

The interesting thing about this is that in order to bring order to the non-existent Planning Department he had to combine four departments to do it. The person the Mayor selected is his assistant to the CAO, someone without planning education. In his statement the reason behind the SMP was his determination to reorganise the Planning Department, surely one needs to be a Planner with certifications and the authority to sign off on planning documents. This point is crucial as somebody has to sign off on all applications, if the person signing off has dubious qualifications, or none at all, the Municipality could have huge liability problems!

Statement from Mayor Lucas Cleveland

 

But back to the question in the headline, Why do we have a local Council? In this case as in other SMPs the need for a Council has been dispensed with. This SMP with the Municipal Governance implications was issued without members of Council seeing it coming – no discussion of this issue had been mentioned by the Mayor to his Council before he pulled it out of his nether-regions.

If this lack of team communication is present, at least two members of Council tell me that he communicates with his Council by email, then we have a serious problem with this supposed “I am a team leader” – election statement. This style certainly demonstrates that we have a dysfunctional Council.

So we move on to a new era in Municipal politics – AUTOCRACY – I wonder how the rest of Council will react? How will the Citizens react? We will have to wait and see.