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Jerusalem - Capital May Get Two Charedi Deputy Mayors |
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Jerusalem - The Knesset passed in a preliminary reading a legislative amendment that would pave the way for two haredi members of the Jerusalem Municipality's Council to receive salaries as deputy mayors.
Under the mayoralty of Teddy Kollek the Jerusalem Municipality wasgiven special permission to appoint eight salaried deputy ministers for hiswide coalition.
Mayor Nir Barkat also enjoys a wide coalition. Deputies earn between NIS 20,000 and NIS 40,000 per month depending on seniority.
In general the law determines that deputy mayors should be allotted in accordance with the size of a given city's population.
Cities with more than 100,000 residents received two deputy mayors, those with more than 200,000 received three, and cities with more than 300,000 such as Tel Aviv, received four.
However, the scale ended at 500,000 or more, which meant that Jerusalem, which has a population of nearly 800,000, was permitted only six deputy mayors.
If the present amendment passes in the Knesset plenum, remains unchanged after discussions in the Knesset Interior Affairs Committee and passes another final vote in the Knesset, Shas and United Torah Judaism will each be allowed to appoint one of their municipal representatives as a deputy mayor.
The amendment has already been approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation.
MK Uri Maklev (UTJ) who initiated the amendment, said through a spokesman that two more deputy mayors who were salaried would bring political stability and improve the service Jerusalem residents receive from the municipality.
"You can't expect a member of the municipality to devote himself fully to his work for Jerusalem if he is busy supporting himself and his family," said the spokesman.
"I believe we are fixing a lacuna in the law," added Maklev's spokesman.
Presently, Meretz with three municipal representatives, the National Religious Party with three, and Israel Beiteinu with two, all have deputy mayor positions even though they are smaller than Shas, which has four representatives. Nevertheless, Shas does not have a deputy mayor.
UTJ, with eight representatives, has only one deputy mayor position despite the fact that parties less than half its size have one deputy minister.
A spokesman for Barkat said that these three parties received deputy mayor positions because they supported Barkat before the elections while the haredi parties joined the coalition later.
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Read Comments (5) — Post Yours »
1
Nov 04, 2009 at 08:35 PM Anonymous Says:
So now the chareidi deputy mayors can have a hand in all the rishes that is done against their fellow chareidim. At least if we are dealing with a chiloini we know what were up against
"Kiven shenaase rosh naaser meitzar leyisroel"
2
Nov 04, 2009 at 09:48 PM Anonymous Says:
Why would we waste money on more bureaucrats, especially Chareidi bureaucrats. We elected Barkat and not Porush and don't want or need his cronies to be taking our taxes to do nothing.
3
Nov 05, 2009 at 12:20 AM Anonymous Says:
“ Why would we waste money on more bureaucrats, especially Chareidi bureaucrats. We elected Barkat and not Porush and don't want or need his cronies to be taking our taxes to do nothing. ”
if you really helped elect him then I'm sure you have realised by now what a terrible mistake you did. He has worked tirelessly to harass and abuse the orthodox and has done everything in his power to make life difficult for the charedim in their streets shuls mikvaos and even their homes.
4
Nov 05, 2009 at 08:59 AM Anonymous Says:
And he has allowed changes of street names in the Old City to Arabic names. You voted for Barkat - you got Erekat!
Hopefully he will be OTB - One Term Barkat.
5
Nov 04, 2009 at 10:41 PM Anonymous Says:
Are these new positions designed to provide a parnassah for the gabboim of the Gerre Rebbe, Shlita who is currently in New York raising money (aka "schneurring") for his mosdos in EY. For those who have forgotten, the Gerre rebbe is the reason we have Barkat as mayor.