J Mackintosh

The Mayor’s Talk in last Friday’s Beacon, “Do we need more powerful mayors” was certaining a powerful article.

Unfortunately, the common reaction to the heading of the article was quite likely to be: Certainly not, the council has too much power now.

It is important that the article is fully read.

Accepting that motivating has a strong influence on how people act, it is worth considering the things that motivate the people involved in running a council. Particularly a career ambitious chief executive.

Undoubtedly, one of their motivating forces is how he/she wil measure up when applying of their next appointment, and evidently this is much influenced by the size of the council the chief executive is currently managing.

This can make for an excessively large and extravagant council.

I think Victor Luca’s article contains much information relevant to this situation and I thank him for it.

I prefer the motivation that he obviously has, to act in the interests of ratepayers, and therefore agree that we need more power to our mayor.