Thought for the Day

[blackchubby38]

Londoners (not me), will vote in May in local Borough elections, and for The Mayor. With Mr Cuomo under siege in the city of New York, my thought for the day is -are Mayors the best way to organize the management of a large city?

London did not have a political Mayor until 1999, management previously being organized through a Council or the Greater London Authority, which Margaret Thatcher abolished. Most Boroughs, like most towns and cities, have Mayors which perform ceremonial duties only. The City of London, which is an autonomous authority governing the Financial District, has had a Mayor since 1189.

if London and New York did not have Mayors, should they have a Management Committe? A Council? Blackchubby may pipe in -'been there, tried that' - but as I don't know, I can't add much more. Other than to query the position of Mayor, if only because it puts so much pressure to deliver on one Man (has a woman ever run for Mayor in NYC?) even if they don't work alone.

Some years ago the Mayor of Nice, Jacques Médecin, once ruled this beautiful, but crime-addled city like an Autocrat (he effectively inherited the job from his dad, Jean [Vichy? Pas moi!]) -until he did a runner with a suitcase full of cash. So I have tended to think of Mayors with enormous powers as a mistake waiting to happen.

But are there practical alternatives?

Cuomo is the Governor of New York State. Bill De Blasio is the Mayor of New York City.

I think a mayor is still the best option to manage a large city. The issues you run into is when that mayor is a shitty leader like De Blasio or when you have one political party that not only controls the mayor's mansion, but the city council as well.

Each borough also has its own president. But from what I can tell, most of them just use it as a stepping stone to becoming mayor.

[fred41]

We should also mention that Mayors also have city Councils that represent districts in the city ( my local council member, at the moment, is Jimmy Van Bramer). They help to vote on the budget and to enact laws for the city, along with the Mayor, similar to the larger bodies of government in this country. We also have a City Comptroller along with a State Comptroller, etc....As blackchubby38 has stated, each borough has their own president, but the job does seem mostly perfunctory (ribbon cutting ceremonies and such). each borough also has it’s own elected District attorney along with their own Civil/Criminal Courts - both Supreme and lower Criminal (along with Family and Housing Courts..etc..). So Mayor’s don’t go it alone, but they are quite frequently the more recognizable face in the local government.

[fred41]

To BC’s point, out of around 51 Council seats..only three are Republican (two of those belonging to Staten Island ). So yeah, one party.

[fred41]

Blackchubby38, do you feel good about any of the possible contenders for the crown? I’m not feeling good about too many, including Presidential Democratic primary reject Andrew Yang. I thought the young man who got kicked out of Staten Island , Max Rose, might’ve been a good selection - a fairly moderate Democrat, who only lost because Staten Island, which he represented, is still pretty conservative, so they elected Nicole Malliotakis instead (she lost her try at Mayor, when DeBlasio won his second term).

[Stavros]

Thanks to Blackchubby and Fred for your thoughts -and apologies for a schoolboy error though from this remote location Bill de Blasio doesn't register on my radar, and I suspect that is a relief. It seems you both satisfied with the set-up if not the men elected, so I wonder who has impressed you in the past, and why?

For example, though I left London in the mid-1980s, earlier in the decade Ken Livingstone when leader of the Greater London Council was popular for mounting a 'Fair's Fair' campaign which lowered the cost of travelling on the Underground, for which he was taken to Court and beaten -when he became the elected Mayor years later, he saw through both the rationalization of travel with the Oyster Card which can be used for both the Underground and the bus network, and Investment in buses and staff that meant that the days of old when you could wait an hour for a No 73 and then find four arrive at the same time came to an end. I recall working with someone who lived on the Isle of Dogs for whom its bus service west to Bethnal Green was a legend rather than a reality -not only are those days gone, but with the new Docklands Light Railway London acquired a transport sector that does appear to have met the challenges of population and commercial expansion, whereas I read that the Subway system in NYC is in real need of an overhaul.

Boris Johnson's innovation as Mayor was to persuade the UAE to create a cable car link across the Thames in a part of London most commonly populated by weasels and newts -irrelevance at great expense being one of his specialities, as the millions wasted on 'Boris buses' proved. Just imagine, having been born in Manhattan, had Mr Brexit not surrendered his American passport -for tax reasons, not loyalty as he doesn't know what that is -he would have been able to stand as a candidate to be Mayor of your amazing city. And he may well have been elected. Maybe de Niro should run, I assume he needs the money after this dismal year for his various business interests...not to mention the alimony...

[blackchubby38]

Blackchubby38, do you feel good about any of the possible contenders for the crown? I’m not feeling good about too many, including Presidential Democratic primary reject Andrew Yang. I thought the young man who got kicked out of Staten Island , Max Rose, might’ve been a good selection - a fairly moderate Democrat, who only lost because Staten Island, which he represented, is still pretty conservative, so they elected Nicole Malliotakis instead (she lost her try at Mayor, when DeBlasio won his second term).

Malliotakis is the only Republican that I have ever voted for. That's how much I despise DeBlasio.

I feel really good about Andrew Yang. Despite his early gaffs and certain media outlets taking shots at him, he is still leading in the polls. I think the other contenders are starting to worry about his chances because you're starting to hear the "he doesn't have any experience in government" arguments.

He definitely has peaked my interest after saying the following two things:

"Yang said he would support decriminalizing possessing small amounts of all drugs, and instead wants to steer people into substance-abuse treatment."

nypost.com/2021/03/18/nyc-mayoral-candidates-adams-yang-clash-over-drug-legalization/


“I will confess to being a parent that has been frustrated by how slow our schools have been to open, and I do believe that the UFT has been a significant reason why our schools have been slow to open,” Yang told Politico New York in an interview published Friday.


//nypost.com/2021/03/19/andrew-yang-blames-nyc-teachers-union-for-slow-school-restart/


But hey, if Yang doesn't get the nomination, we can always continue the trend of famous 1980s' personalities being elected to office and vote for Curtis Silwa.

[Stavros]

This thought is for filghy2 as I read a horrendous report on the Rodent Explosion in Australia, and wonder if you have any experience f it. I had a traumatic experience with rodents in the first place I lived in when I left home, and have a loathing of such creatures such that I can't even watch them when they are screen in films. Have the just as extraordinary rains washed them away? And what has been the cause of the epidemic?

Contains distressing images-
https://www.theguardian.com/australi...tern-australia

[sukumvit boy]

LOL,however one must respect the pure tenacity of rodents . When asked which creatures will most likely survive a nuclear holocaust or the next great asteroid impact most biologists will tell you Bats Rats and Roaches .

[filghy2]

This thought is for filghy2 as I read a horrendous report on the Rodent Explosion in Australia, and wonder if you have any experience f it. I had a traumatic experience with rodents in the first place I lived in when I left home, and have a loathing of such creatures such that I can't even watch them when they are screen in films. Have the just as extraordinary rains washed them away? And what has been the cause of the epidemic?

It's not near me fortunately, and nor are the floods. Mice plagues seem to be problem mainly in grain-growing regions. The thought of them crawling over me while I'm sleeping would be disconcerting.

I'm not sure what they are doing to the mice, but the floods are causing other problems. How do you feel about spiders?
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ape-nsw-floods

[Stavros]

It's not near me fortunately, and nor are the floods. Mice plagues seem to be problem mainly in grain-growing regions. The thought of them crawling over me while I'm sleeping would be disconcerting.

I'm not sure what they are doing to the mice, but the floods are causing other problems. How do you feel about spiders?
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ape-nsw-floods

I am pleased to here you have not been affected. To paraphrase Sukumvit Boy's post above, I don't have a problem with the tenacity of revolting creatures, but their proximity to me. In the case of spiders, I usually put them in a cup or a jar and send them out into the big wide world, which I believe is far more interesting for them than my bathroom or bedroom. That said, there are spiders, and then there are Australian spiders....so I don't envy your geography, fascinating as it is -from a distance....

https://www.facebook.com/Goggleboxfa...3840542088576/