Apparently Mayor Mrakas is playing the Representation by Population card at the Regional council table.
He is advocating for a reduction of 11 members of Regional council as a correction that could result in a $600,000 savings.
The question I have is if a correction is necessary, and cost efficiencies are being used to justify this change then why is he not looking to apply the same principle across all municipalities in the region? Why is this off the table?
The current system we are beholden to requires 9 mayors + 64 councillors to govern York Region.
This is a total of 73 politicians for a pollution of 1,200,000
An average of 16,438 per member.
When you compare each municipality to this average you notice great disparities in the representation by population in each of the 9 municipalities.
Here they are ranked from the greatest to least:
King – 25,000 / 7 ( 6 councillors + 1 mayor) = 3,571
East Gwillimbury – 24,000 / 5 (4 councillors + 1 mayor) = 4,800
Whitchurch Stouffville – 50,000 / 7 (6 councillors + 1 mayor ) = 7,1243
Georgina – 50,000 / 7 (6 councillors + 1 mayor ) = 7,142
Aurora – 60,000 / 7 (6 councillors + 1 mayor) = 8,571
Newmarket – 85,000 / 9 (8 councillors + 1 mayor) = 9,444
Markham – 330,000 / 13 (12 councillors + 1 mayor) = 25,384
RichmondHill – 200,000 / 9 (8 councillors + 1 mayor) = 22,222
Vaughan – 310,000 / 9 (8 councillors + 1 mayor) = 34,444
If Mrakas’ motion was an honest attempt to level the playing field then it should recognize and advance a reduction of the number of councillors in all the N6 municipalities.
If we consider the lowest compliment being a 2 councillor 1 mayor system this would result in 9 mayor, 40 councillors. Here is the revised breakdown:
King – 25,000 – 2 councillors + 1 mayor = 3 – 3,572 = 8,333
East Gwillimbury – 24,000 – 2 councillors + 1 mayor = 8,000
Whitchurch Stouffville – 50,000 – 1 councillors + 1 mayor = 16,666
Georgina – 50,000 – 2 councillors + 1 mayor = 16,666
Aurora – 60,000. – 2 councillors + 1 mayor = 20,000
Newmarket – 85,000 – 2 councillors + 1 mayor = 28,333
Markham – 330,000 – 12 councillors + 1 mayor = 13 – 25,384
RichmondHill – 200,000 – 8 councillors + 1 mayor = 9 – 22,222
Vaughan – 310,000 – 8 councillors + 1 mayor = 9 – 34,444
This model identifies an unnecessary 24 Municipal councillors, double the reduction Mrakas’ motion has proposed.
In fact there seems to be little efficiency proposed in Mrakas solution when you stack it up against a model of amalgamation.
Let’s compare York Region to the City of Toronto.
Toronto council is composed of 1 mayor and 25 city councillors representing a ward of around 96,800 people each.
In Toronto councillors represent 5 times more people than the current average of York Region.
To bring York Region inline to Toronto would require reducing the current 9 mayors + 64 councillors to 1 mayor and 11 councillors.
This would reduce 73 York Region politicians to 12.
The only thing preventing this is the dissolution of municipalities in the Region.
If the goal is efficiency then the way to achieve that is amalgamation, not shuffling the deck chairs of a Regional council which will ultimately be amalgamated.
If Mrakas is advocating against amalgamation he is doing so by advancing an inefficient system, and one that is clearly not reflective of representation by population.
Either Mrakas is particularly bad at understanding statistics or he is unwilling to recognize the hypocrisy in his proposal.
Or both.
#NotGettingThingsDone
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