With the upcoming election, perhaps it’s time to consider changing city council. Presently there are 23 city councilors for a city with a population of 372,679. That’s one councilor for every 16 940 people. To put that in perspective, Toronto (pop. 2,503,281) and Vancouver (pop. 578,041) each have about one councilor for every 57 000 people. New York (pop. 8,214,426) has one for every 161 067 people. For us to have to same ratio as Toronto or Vancouver, we would need 6-7 councilors.
If each councilor was making $50 000 per year, 16 fewer councilors would equal $800 000 in municipal money for things like the roads, or schools or anything else that could improve this city. How can it possibly be justified to have so many more councilors than other cities?
This article appears in Jan 10-16, 2008.
More representatives (should) denote greater representation… should it not?
Okay, okay, in theory.But really, I’m more comfortable with 23 people representing my voice than 6 or 7. ONE person representing 57,000 people is pathetic! I would even argue that ONE person representing 17,000 is pathetic.More councilors!
herehere!