Who should vote for the York Region Chair?

In the United States, the Vice President also serves as the President or Chairperson of the Senate.  The framers of the American constitution gave the Veep that job out of concern that otherwise he or she would have nothing else to do.  The writers of the constitution didn't want to leave the Veep unemployed until such a time as his boss dies.   

But other than chairing Senate sessions, the Vice President has no other official government responsibilities except in the rare occasion that a Senate vote ends in a tie.  If there is a tied vote, then the Vice President votes as the tie breaker.   

The Chair of York Region Council is a position that is voted on by members of the Council.  Wayne Emerson currently presides in this position which pays him in the range of $270,000 per year.  He chairs the meetings and he votes in the event of a tie.  But the York Chairperson has more responsibilities than that.  Wayne Emerson is the essentially the Chief Executive Officer of York Region.  He is the spokesperson and has a considerable amount of influence over the Regional government.   

Chris Ballard MPP for Newmarket-Aurora and before him, Reza Morida MPP for Richmond Hill have been pushing to have our Regional Chair elected by the people and not by the council members of York Region.   

I think this is a bad idea for a number of reasons: 

1) The most votes are in the south of York Region so each election will be about Southern-York Region issues.  With smaller numbers of voters, issues involving Georgina, East Gwillimbury, Newmarket and Aurora won't matter to southern voters at election time so they won't be addressed by candidates.   

2) We already have an imbalance on York Council with southern 3 city councillors outnumbering the remaining 6 smaller municipalities.  We would essentially be giving this imbalance even more emphasis with an elected Chair.   

3) It will cost several millions to run an election campaign for a Regional Chair.  Someone like current our Chair Wayne Emmerson, who is capable in his job but lacks the means to finance a multi million dollar election campaign, just won't be a credible candidate under Chris Ballard's proposal.  Due to the cost of a campaign, the Regional Chair, once elected, will become beholden to the large corporate and union campaign donors and not necessarily to the people.

While it might seem undemocratic, a Chair voted on by the Mayors and Regional Councillors may be better municipal government because: 

1) To be re-elected, the Chair has to be sensitive to the entire Region.  He/she cannot focus exclusively on Southern York Region issues.   

2) The Chair does not owe any outside influences (such as developers) any favours for their financial support in the election.   

3) While most Mayors and Regional Councillors get distracted in the fourth year of any term, the Regional Chair can continue on with running the municipality during all four years of a council term, unaffected by election campaigns.  

Before proceeding with a plan to elect a Chair, I hope that residents of the smaller York Region communities, such as King, Whitchurch Stouffville, Aurora, Georgina, East Gwillimbury and Newmarket, will think about the consequences of this change will be in our communities.  We all rely on York Regional services.  Will the services be there for us if the balance of power shifts southward?