It's been a week since Cardiff North AM Jonathan Morgan surprised Cardiffians with a blogpost on Cardiff East blog suggesting we need a directly elected mayor for the city.
Since then, a number of follow-up posts have appeared in the local media and the blogosphere – so here's a round-up of all that's gone on.
Do you think we need an elected mayor for the city? Leave your comments below.
Cardiff mayor in the news and across the web
Jonathan Morgan wrote a guest post for Cardiff East blog arguing the impressive and ever-growing city needs a directly elected mayor to give Cardiff leadership and engage with citizens. He wrote:
"If we sit back and merely accept that the current form of local government is adequate, then Cardiff's development will stagnate. A directly elected mayor would give Cardiffians a direct say; not just a vote for a local councillor who in turn elects the county council leader but a direct input into what direction our capital city should take.
"At the very least, I firmly believe that we should be debating whether this is a route that Cardiffians wish to take."
Morgan continued that this was not an attack on Cardiff Council but thought it would be a political mechanism to improve how the city is government since the concept:
"has the potential to enable and empower residents beyond their local communities – it provides an extension to democracy. It's a concept that allows greater engagement with individuals and communities that has never been done before in the city."
He added:
"One of the most important factors for me is that it's a concept that could revive democratic accountability, for two reasons. Firstly, the elected individual will be mandated by the majority of Cardiff's citizens; everyone in the city will have a say about the person they want to represent them. Secondly because of this fact, they are directly accountable and culpable for the decisions or failures that occur under their administration. The public have a clear sense of who is in charge and who should be removed."
Executive member councillor John Dixon added to the debate in comments. He wrote:
"I find myself a little torn on the subject of an elected mayor. It is superficially attractive – a single person with a mandate from the majority of a city, who can take a strategic view and not be split between serving the people who elected them in a ward and looking at the needs of Cardiff as a whole.
"But […] there's the concentration of power in the hands of one person. As a liberal, this is probably what I'm most uncomfortable with.
"Currently, the Council Leader is first amongst equals and held to account by their group which is a valuable check in between elections. That would be far more difficult to provide to someone who had been elected with a personal mandate."
Read the full article and comments here. Read the follow-up post on WalesOnline here.
Later in the week Cardiff Civic Society chair Peter Cox gave his views on the debate which was spreading across the Twittersphere. Cox said he wasn't sure if a mayor was the solution – but there certainly was a problem with how the local authority engaged with citizens. He said:
"Why are people so disengaged from civic life? Would a mayor solve the problem? I would support it if the post would attract the right people to create that kind of engagement."
On Thursday, Boris Johnson's aide said Cardiff could do with a mayor like London's to be a "champion and a cheerleader" for the city. Read the post on WalesOnline here.
To end the week Grangetown-born Italian restaurant owner Giovanni Malacrino told the Echo if there were to be a mayoral contest he would be up for running for the seat. So what other Cardiff celebrities are soon to nominate themselves for their still hypothetical position?
Today, yourCardiff announced a new Twitter account @CdfMayor – presumably which will re-tweet any other sitings adding to the debate across the internet – and we'll update this blogpost too with any other interesting comments and happenings.
Do you think Cardiff needs a directly elected mayor? What do you think of the points raised in the debate so far? Leave your own comments in the section below.
