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Mayor row continues to rumble

Yorkshire Evening Post: 3rd January 2009 Last week Councillor Jim McKenna paid me a visit and listened to my problems over a couple of cups of coffee. He made some notes and was off wishing me all the best for the festive season and a happy new year. I was very much surprised to read in last night's YEP that he was nominated as Lord Mayor of Leeds for the year 2009/10, and that instead someone called Judith Elliott (who?) from the Morley Borough Independents (what?) has been selected by the ruling city junta! Jim has represented the people of Armley for over 20 years, and in that time he has been chair of planning – a time which saw the regeneration and renovation of huge parts of our city centre. It was Jim McKenna who was instrumental in the foundation of the LAZER centre in West Leeds. Surely the post of Lord Mayor is one of the city honouring someone who has served the city well and for a certain amount of time? For 20-plus years Coun McKenna has served the people of Leeds as an Armley Labour Party councillor. Coun Elliott, of the entity known as Morley Borough Independents, has been a Leeds city councillor for a mere four years – hardly a record of service to the people of Leeds! Why would this Morley Borough Independent want to be Lord Mayor of Leeds? Doesn't Morley Borough have its own Mayor? More to the point, why w ould the Liberal Democrat-Conservative ruling coalition snub someone with many years of public service for someone with almost none? Or is this a case of "Jobs for t'lads" – or in Councillor Elliott's case "lasses"? Adam S Hussain, Cross Grasmere Street, Leeds Coun Judith Elliott, a Morley Borough Independent Councillor wants to be Lord Mayor of Leeds, with the Conservative councillors backing her. This is not really a surprise – when Councillor Elliott was Mayor of Morley in 2002/03 she was a Conservative town councillor who was supported for town mayor by the independents on the town council. Her party allegiance may have changed in the last five years but she still relies on the staunch support from her ex-Conservative friends. Charlotte Hill, Ibbetson Oval, Morley