SO, the paradox of being a mayor rests in the lack of formal power the mayor has in
real terms, despite the importance of the mayor's contribution for a council to run smoothly and achieve its goals. Elwood ( 1 99 1 ) who is an ex-mayor and chaired the Local Government Commission before joining the Ombudsman's office writes that:
In the New Zealand context the mayoral office is both powerful and powerless. Powerful in the sense that the mayor is the recognized community leader, but powerless in the sense that the mayor cannot commit a council to a particular course of action or the allocation of resources without majority support on each issue which comes before the council for a resolution or a decision (El wood, 1 99 1 , p. l 0).
These limitations are set out in the legislation that defines the boundaries of local government's jurisdiction. Kenneth Palmer in Local Government Law in New Zealand
( 1 993) outlines the limited powers of a mayor as contained in the Local Government Act 1 974 with this succinct explanation:
The electors of the whole area of every city, and district council, elect a mayor at each triennial election. The mayor is ex officio a member of the council and comes into office on the date of the election . . . . The mayoral office does not by statute have any comprehensive prescribed functions or powers, other than the procedural powers given to the mayors to chair meetings, exercise a casting vote, and to requisition for special or emergency meetings (Palmer,
1 993, p. 1 60).
After delineating how little the statute confers in terms of the statutory powers of a mayor, Palmer goes on to discuss the empirical realities of the way the mayoral role
has developed in practice. He explains that the leadership a mayor exhibits depends partly on personal qualities and partly on the context created by the idiosyncrasies of the local authority concerned, particularly its size:
By more recent convention the functions performed by the mayors of the larger cities have transformed the office into a full-time position. However, the time devoted to the office and functions may well reflect the degree of leadership undertaken, the individual personality, the council committee structure, and the relationship with the chief administrative officer employed by the authority. The scale of salaries and remuneration payable to mayors is related to population and reflects the full-time nature of the office in the large urban areas (Palmer, 1 993, pp. l 60- 1 6 1 ).
As Palmer explains, the brief for a mayor is a very open one and will differ markedly depending on the nature of the local authority. A small rural district will have different issues from a large urban city, although both require appropriate leadership in terms of the mayor's commitment of time and focus, as Palmer ( 1 993) indicates. Bush ( 1 995) also mentions leadership as the quality that is expected and required of every mayor as designated head of the council, despite the fact that the statute does not mention leadership when defining the mayoral office.
Margaret Evans, who was previously a mayor of Hamilton City, argues in her thesis on leadership and the role of the mayor in New Zealand (2003) that the duties of a mayor as leader should be spelled out in the Local Government Act 2002 in much the same way as the duties and obligations of a chief executive are detailed in the legislation. She thinks that having the weight of legislation to strengthen the mayor's position would help to prevent the situations that have arisen in some local authorities where mayors are at loggerheads with their councils or unable to influence dysfunctional factionalism within councils. At present the mayor's power is very limited yet the expectations surrounding the position of mayor are almost boundless.
Although the mayor, like the other members of council, has only one vote on any issue considered by the council, the mayor has the responsibility for maintaining an overview of all the council's activities. Ordinary councillors are able to specialise in
mayor enjoys several advantages over the majority of counci llors (Bush, 1 995). The mayor is usually full-time and because of attendance at meetings and community events is able to keep up with issues right across the council and out in the community. Bush points out also, that being primary spokesperson for the local body gives mayors "a high identification rating" and that there are "a wealth of opportunities for them to steer policymaking by wheeling and dealing. But to do this rather than concentrate on ceremonial and social duties, they have to be so driven and permitted" (Bush, 1 995, p.20 1 ).
What Bush's comments illustrate is that the approach each individual mayor chooses to take to the mayoral duties and the operating environment of the individual local authority will be the two main factors in shaping differences among mayors and their leadership. However, these differences can be examined and analysed by researchers. For example, Kotter and Lawrence ( 1 974) developed a taxonomy of mayoral approaches to the leadership role, based on research carried out with American mayors, but applicable to the New Zealand context. They named their five different types of mayors as ceremonial, caretaker, personalitylindividualist, executive and program entrepreneur. These types range from a mayoral approach which is very limited in scope with only short-run agendas [ceremonial] through to an approach which is very broad in scope with short, medium and long-range agendas [program entrepreneur]. This taxonomy underscores the obvious but crucial point, that as leaders mayors are capable only of doing the job they perceive as being there to be done and that the council allows them to do.
International comparisons of mayors are useful in highlighting the contingency of the conventional wisdom in New Zealand and the way that the external environment shapes the mayoral role. As Elwood ( 1 99 1 ) explains, "In many respects the mayoral office [in New Zealand] is unlike most mayoral offices anywhere else in the world. The two key characteristics are that the mayor is not elected by the council and the mayor has no executive authority except as delegated by the council." In America, the role of mayor differs much more from place to place than is the case in New Zealand. As Svara ( 1 990) points out, more than half of the municipalities with populations of over 2,500 in the U.S.A. use a mayor-council system. Over a third of cities use the council-manager form of local government while the remaining cities
are run either by a commIssIon or by holding town meetings to make decisions. Svara's comments on the mayor's role in the different versions of the mayor-counci l system i n America provide an interesting basis for contrast and comparison with New Zealand's version of the mayor-council system in local government.
Svara ( 1990) distinguishes between the weak mayor and strong mayor forms of government. The weak mayor form of local government is much more closely related to the system that is typical in New Zealand. The powers of a mayor are far more limited in a weak mayor local government structure, whereas the mayor in a strong mayor council has much more unilateral administrative and executive power. The weak mayor has very limited powers to appoint staff, some of whom may be elected, some appointed by the council or by the mayor, but only with the consent of the council. Simi larly, the weak mayor is not able to develop a budget to translate an overview of policy into a financial plan, without the involvement of the council and elected officials. Svara ( 1990) sees the mayor in a weak mayor council as having to expend tremendous energy to overcome the inherent fragmentation of authority in the system by encouraging and influencing power-holders to work together.
The strong mayor-council structure, on the other hand, has a mayor with extensive powers and control over staff, who is separate from the elected council. The mayor prepares the budget and is able to appoint and to dismiss department heads. The mayor can veto council ' s proposals but the council is able to override mayoral vetoes and must approve policy proposals, so that there are checks and balances within the strong mayor system. The mayor has more access to information and more power over staff, so that when there is conflict between mayor and council, the council may be limited to obstructive tactics, blocking the mayor's initiatives rather than introducing alternatives.
Svara ( 1990) comments that much of the literature concentrates on the strong mayor and is somewhat dismissive of the weak mayor, but he sees the weak mayor as having more power to influence others without political suspicions being aroused, so that 'weakness' or rather lack of institutional power and control can be used as a strength. Svara considers that the weak mayor can achieve a great deal as a co-coordinator or
influence precisely because of not having executive power. These points highlight the importance of the mayor and the kind of overview and influence that a mayor can have in a changing environment. The mayor's powers as stipulated in the legislation have not changed but the introduction of a mayoral salary in the 1 980s has increased the pool of potential mayors beyond those of independent means and the changing local government environment has created a vacuum which requires an innovator and a co-coordinator in communities, both roles which mayors are well situated to accept and develop. In the next section the changes to the local government environment, which have had such an impact on the role of the mayor, will be explored.