Municipal council

A municipal council is the local government of a municipality. Specifically the term may refer to the institutions of various countries that may be translated by this term. In English, it may refer to what are also called city councils and town councils.

France

Despite enormous differences in populations, each of the communes of the French Republic possesses a mayor (French: maire) and a municipal council (French: conseil municipal), which manage the commune from the mairie (city hall), with exactly the same powers no matter the size of the commune and council. The one exception is the city of Paris, where the city police is in the hands of the central state, not in the hands of the mayor of Paris. This uniformity of status is a clear legacy of the French Revolution, which wanted to do away with the local idiosyncrasies and tremendous differences of status that existed in the kingdom of France.

The size of a commune still matters, however, in two domains: French law determines the size of the municipal council according to the population of the commune; and the size of the population determines which voting process is used for the election of the municipal council.

Aidan Knight

Aidan Knight (born October 23, 1986) is a Victoria-based songwriter and namesake for Canadian experimental folk band, Aidan Knight. Knight has also performed and recorded with The Zolas, Hannah Georgas, Dan Mangan, and We Are the City.

Musical beginnings

Knight grew up in Victoria, British Columbia. Prior to forming his own musical project in 2008, Knight was a member of the bands Maurice, Toco & Jorge, Vegan Holocaust and Counting Heartbeats. He also recorded and performed with Hannah Georgas, The Zolas, Dan Mangan, Karkwa, Jeremy Fisher and David Vertesi.

Knight helped establish the record label Adventure Boys Club, with founder Tyler Bancroft of the band Said the Whale. Its first release was Knight's debut album, Versicolour, on March 2, 2010. Previous digital EPs include Hi There and First Takes, a collection of demos and field recordings from 2007–2008. Versicolour was recorded in Langley at Buena Vista over the course of two years with producer Jonathan Anderson of Jonathan Inc.

Council

A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county level, but most legislative bodies at the state or national level are not considered councils. At such levels, there may be no separate executive branch, and the council may effectively represent the entire government. A board of directors might also be denoted as a council. A committee might also be denoted as a council, though a committee is generally a subordinate body composed of members of a larger body, while a council may not be. Because many schools have a student council, the council is the form of governance with which many people are likely to have their first experience as electors or participants.

A member of a council may be referred to as a councillor, or by the gender-specific titles of councilman and councilwoman.

In politics

Notable examples of types of councils encountered in politics include:

Municipality

A municipality is usually an urban administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction. The term municipality is also used to mean the governing, ruling body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district. The term is derived from French "municipalité" and Latin "municipalis".

The English word "Municipality" derives from the Latin social contract "municipium", meaning duty holders, referring to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman citizenship to the inhabitants) while permitting the communities to retain their own local governments (a limited autonomy).

A municipality can be any political jurisdiction from a sovereign state, such as the Principality of Monaco, or a small village, such as West Hampton Dunes, New York.

The territory over which a municipality has jurisdiction may encompass