December 22, 2010 - 3:34 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
City Hall provides some amazing pay and benefits for staff, but the elected officials don't exactly enjoy the same standard.
A paltry pay increase to the Mayor and Council of Vancouver is long overdue, but as the article points out, our city is woeful when it comes to compensating out local representatives.
City Council is usually described as a half-time job, allowing for Councillors to maintain other employment. The reality of the situation is a far different story, however.
Between Council meetings, appearances and events, constituent meetings, caucus meetings, reading and briefings and dealing with city staff, it is nearly impossible to be able to maintain any kind of professional normalcy away from City Hall.
I have never ascribed the act of seeking public office as a means to become rich, because aside from being a fallacy, it clearly involves more motivation than financial gain. That being said, the new figure of $63,610 still seems a long way off from properly compensating Councillors for the 60+ hour weeks they put in for a “half-time” job.
If you’re on the Park Board, you’re even worse off.
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July 26, 2010 - 11:13 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
Tonight's vote at Port Coquitlam's City Hall will be closely watched by municipal politicians across the province.
This morning’s front page of the Vancouver Sun has a story about the proposed pay raises for Port Coquitlam’s Mayor and Council, which will be voted on tonight.
The issue of pay raises for politicians, particularly ones that they initiate and implement on their own is a prickly one, to be sure. Generally, the public tends to think that no elected official is worth what he/she is paid, showing a general lack of knowledge of how much work they actually encounter and a innate disdain for the profession altogether.
And, of course, there is the fact that there are very few employment options available out there where one can vote on their own pay increase, which in turn only adds to the resentment a member of the public might feel about such a decision.
Without any hesitation, I often share my opinion that Councillors are grossly underpaid, and that the notion of these positions classifying as part-time work (particularly for larger municipalities like Vancouver), is completely out of touch with reality.
That being said, this article has some poorly thought out comments, both from the Minister and the Mayor, that in my opinion taints the perceptions of those reading the piece from the outset.
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