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17
Mar
Knaresborough to get second Green mayor
Knaresborough is to have its second Green mayor, it has been revealed.
Cllr Shan Oakes, who is one of two Greens on Knaresborough Town Council, will hold the post for a year, carrying out civic duties on behalf of the council.
Her acceptance of the role was announced last night at a meeting of Knaresborough Town Council, which the Stray Ferret attended.
Ms Oakes told us:
I was surprised, to be honest. It was something we weren’t expecting, but it’s just how the points system worked out.
Since the 1990s, Knaresborough’s mayor has been chosen according to a points system based on political proportionality that few people understand, but which has prevented arguments over the role for three decades.
Under the system, the Conservatives had the most points, but one of that party’s two councillors, Cllr Kathryn Davies, has fulfilled the role before, and it is understood that the other, Cllr John Batt, is in ill health.
The Green Party had the next highest points tally, so the role was offered to Cllr Oakes.
She has chosen Liberal Democrat councillors James Pickard and Kit Lacey as her joint deputies.
The Mayor Making ceremony will be held on Thursday, May 21. Asked what plans she had for her time in the role, Ms Oakes said:
We need to think about the future. Friends of the Earth are holding a Green Futures Fair on May 9, and I’d like to carry on that theme for the mayor’s civic event.
There’s so much to do, and it’s just a case of pulling it all together.
The mayor’s civic duties will not be unfamiliar to Ms Oakes, as she was the mayor’s consort when her husband, Bill Rigby, became Knaresborough’s first Green mayor in 2016.
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