Parramatta City Council’s Residents’ Panel

Parramatta City Council’s Residents’ Panel is a group of people from all walks of life who have volunteered to represent all sectors of our community in ongoing public consultations. The original target was to have enough persons equivalent to one per cent of the area’s population (1500 residents) and that the panel to be statistically valid and representative demographically and geographically of the population of the Parramatta Local Government Area. We have achieved this and would like to increase engagement to 3000 residents in due course.

The panel will be actively involved in providing information and advice to Council decisions. Panel members will receive feedback on how their input has been received and what were the outcomes . Updates to all consultations will be made via this website.

Governance Consultation - Do residents want a popularly elected Lord Mayor?

Currently, Parramatta City Council Lord Mayoral elections are held annually, with popularly elected Councillors voting amongst themselves which member of the Chamber will be the Civic Leader of the city for the following twelve months.

An alternatively model adopted by some Council’s has a popularly elected Lord Mayor, in which residents vote directly for a Lord Mayor from amongst the candidates at Local Government elections held every four years.

There are arguments for and against this.

To gauge community opinion on this matter, all Resident Panel members will be asked about this later in the year. We will also provide information for and against these two alternative models for Panel members to consider when making comment.

A mail or email based survey (depending on Resident Panel preferences) will be sent to all members on the 18th of November 2009