THE ISLAND'S Mayors have been hit with low grades for performance by a public which will tomorrow mark the first anniversary of the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) near sweep of the 2003 Local Government elections.
The 14 Mayors, from Kingston's high-profile Desmond Mckenzie to Port Antonio's little-known Alston Hunter, have all failed to convince better than 66 per cent of their constituents to give them positive performance ratings in a Gleaner-commissioned Don Anderson poll.
At the same time, only three Mayors received higher than 40 per cent. The poll, which was conducted between May 29 and June 10 by Anderson and his team at Market Research Services Ltd., included interviews with 1,540 persons, aged 18 years and older, across the 13 Parish Councils and the municipality of Portmore. The sample was increased from that used in normal national polls in order to allow for a large enough number of persons to be interviewed in each of the 14 towns.
"In seven parish capitals, the residents generally do not feel that the respective Mayors are doing anything like a good to excellent job," Anderson said in his analysis.
INSIDE:
A4: Room for optimism
A6: Man of action
A7: Portmore's champion
A8: Not business as usual
