The role of the mayor http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/15828166.Letter_The_role_of_the_mayor/
Audentior1 15th January 18
The true cost of the present Liberal Democrat Elected Mayor Dorothy Thornhill is considerably more than is being claimed here.
When she first stood as a candidate for the position of Elected Mayor in 2001-2, Dorothy Thornhill claimed that she did not need a chief officer to run Watford Council as she would be capable of running all the affairs of the Council herself.
After being elected as Elected Mayor, she dismissed Alan Clarke – the then Chief Officer – but soon realised that she was not capable of doing the job. She then created a new post of Managing Director – now Manny Lewis.
So, not only did she continue to receive the full salary, expenses and pension contributions for the post of Elected Mayor but Watford taxpayers also ended up paying a similar amount for the new managing director.
Since then, not only has she created the extra post of a Deputy Elected Mayor but also a new position of a Deputy Managing Director, both of whom receive full pay or allowances, expenses and pension contributions.
As part of her personal staff, she also has appointed a full-time political assistant and a full-time appointments secretary to keep her appointments diary up-to-date.
At a rough guess, all these members of her bloated administration must be costing Watford council taxpayers at least a quarter of a million pounds a year to run what has become a vastly reduced executive job of running Watford Council.
She arranged for the sell-off of all the councils housing. She has basically sold-off or contracted-out all the community centres and leisure centres. Waste collection services, as well as parks and open spaces management and allotments have all been contracted-out.
The numbers of directly-employed Watford Borough Council employees must have all been considerably reduced which means that all the management costs of the Council have gone up while the actual operations involved have gone down.
Her latest wheeze is to only work 4 days a week as she takes off Wednesdays to go to the House of Lords one day a week, where she collects 300 Pounds tax-free attendance allowance.
The post of Elected Mayor since 2002 has cost Watford Council taxpayers somewhere in the region of at least 4 Million Pounds to date in real terms.
Now, she wants her puppet Peter Taylor to continue on in the same wasteful way.
If elected, he is almost certain to be a mere puppet for her, even though she will no longer be in office.
Who knows? Maybe her plan is to copy President Putin and to stand for re-election in another 4 years time. I would not be surprised at all if that is in her mind.
ukgovernmentwatch 