YOUR editorial 'Put councillors' pay to electors' (August 8) was a reasoned and thoughtful comment on what must feature as a problematic issue. It comes as no surprise to learn that all the parties are agreed on the proposals.
These radical shifts in policy and practice demand the widest circulation of the report. One suggestion which would cost practically nothing is for the next edition of the council's very own Pravda, The York Citizen, to be given over to the reprint of this document.
Personally, I look forward to the chapter (if there is one!) on the managerial record of a council which clocked up a deficit of £4 million - and seemingly didn't know what was happening until somebody rang the jackpot bell.
The considerations in this proposal, as with the creation of an executive, transcend the financial, serious as these are. There is for example the question of the balanced relationship between elected members and the professional departmental directorates. There is the all-important question of business and electorate confidence in the city's administration.
The failure to take the fundamental step of consulting widely and openly can only, at best, be described in the words of the American poet Walt Whitman as "the never ending audacity of elected persons". Has this council an electoral mandate to go down this path in the absence of a green light from those who, in the final analysis, are on the receiving end of this 'all party agreement'?
G Moore,
Plantation Way,
York.
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