Ryde Town Councillor, Karen Lucioni, shares this latest news. Ed
Karen Lucioni has been a Ryde Town councillor for nearly 6 years and has successfully helped her community to grow and develop, constantly raising public issues and staying in touch with her ward residents.
Carole Osgood of the Coffee Pot said,
“Karen Lucioni represents the town of Ryde well, recently proving this by highlighting the concerns of businesses and residents with the parking petition. Karen spoke to small business owners, like me to gather our concerns and spoke on our behalf at isle of Wight Council. She is a great ambassador for our town.”
Deputy mayor stepped down
The deputy RTC mayor unfortunately had to step down recently due to personal circumstances and immediately Karen thought she would like to step into that role to influence change and 
strengthen the role in the community through the various public duties that a mayor or deputy mayor fulfils.
After undertaking research, it was discovered that Ryde has never had a female Mayor even though Ryde has a greater female population than Males and Karen would indeed like to stand as Ryde’s first female mayor, using the current available role of deputy mayor to get some initial experience of the role.
Focus upon strengthening the Ryde community
Karen would see the public duties balanced with her flexible self-employment and have a focus upon strengthening the Ryde community and getting more people to engage with their local council to make Ryde a better place to be.
Ryde resident, Gloria Pullen, said,
“This would be great as a distinct celebration of Emily Pankhurst’s campaign for women to get the opportunity to vote 100 years ago, having a female mayor would celebrate this and I can think of no better candidate than Karen.”
Deputy Mayor, then Mayor
Karen said,
“I would like to become initially the new deputy mayor of Ryde and hope to be chosen to become Mayor. It would be an absolute honour to serve the people of Ryde as its very first female Mayor. It would build upon my passion for listening to people and developing my community.
“I have been part of the Ryde community most of my life and am passionate about public service and really think that I could make a difference as I have shown over the last few years.”
The deputy Mayor role will be elected at the full RTC meeting 7pm, 28th January and the next mayor will be elected at May’s full town council meeting.
Image: © Google Maps/Streetview
