Re: Conservatives take control of South Ayrshire

In article <4de5702b83john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (John M Ward) wrote:

> > ColinJGSG@xxxxxxx wrote:
> > > 1) To avoid these situations, ought not all councils have an
> > > odd number of members?
>
> > That assumes that all councillors are present and available to
> > vote in all divisions, and do not abstain. My experience of
> > watching Council meetings over the last 7 years is that there are
> > always a few vacant seats, even if there are no vacancies.
>
> I can verify that this invariably happens here too. We had 80
> members originally, though are now down to 55, and I believe that
> the change was deliberately to an odd number (59 and 65 were also
> considered).
>
> > IMHO, it is more logical that a casting vote should be done by
> > someone who has already voted than by someone who otherwise would
> > be deprived of a vote.
>
> Back in the old days of 80 members here, I do not recall many full
> council decisions that needed the mayor's casting vote, but it
> certainly happened a couple of times when the absences on both sides
> of the chamber resulted in an equal number of 'for's and 'against's.

For a total of eight years of the twenty in which the Labour party ran Cambridge City Council, they had 21 out of 42 councillors. Most council meetings were fully attended in those years and the (almost invariably Labour) Mayor's casting vote used many times.

One early objective of the Cambridge Periodic Electoral Review starting in 2000 was to switch to an odd number of wards but it didn't take long for officers and all parties to conclude that geography made this impractical.

--
Cllr. Colin Rosenstiel
Cambridge http://www.rosenstiel.co.uk/
Cambridge Liberal Democrats: http://www.cambridgelibdems.org.uk/
.

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