City Hall has released the earnings report of our six local councilors and Mayor for 2007, combining both the regular salary and travel expenses to give us an idea as to what we pay and what we get from this years class of 2007.
Not surprisingly considering his position, Mayor Herb Pond leads the class, with a salary of $36,237.24 and Travel and expenses money of $12,057. 84; making for a total of $48,295.08 in reported cost…
Well as far as the base salary goes I suspect he’s probably on the low end of the spectrum province wide, while his travel fees are probably a tad on the high side, considering the lack of tangible benefits of all that travel that seem to arrive locally.
As for the amount of time he’s doing his work, it will be interesting to see how others offer up comments on that.
Well, I bet he pulls more than 40 hours a week. It’s sort of weird, as I don’t know his politics yet, I only know him personally. (not like we’re BFF or anything, but I’ve been to his house several times, and we attend the same church.) From what I can see, he works pretty hard, especially since pretty much every time I was at his house, he was working.
Since I’ve been old enough to vote, I have voted in every provincial and federal election, but I have yet voted in a municipal election, mostly 'cause I was either transient at the time of election, or I was living in a rural area (ie. no say in how the big city bossed us little people around) I want to be involved this year though, as I think I now consider Rupert my “home”, and I think it’s important to practice my democratic rights. (use it or lose it.)
Our Councillors and Mayor don’t make very much money at all if we kept a tab on the hours they actually put into the job.
I also think that it’s a misinterpretation of the numbers to say that a Councillor’s salary + expenses = what they made. None of their travel expenses go into their pocket.
Well eccentric, I have either attended or watched City Councillor meetings on TV over the past year, and frankly I can not tell you of one meeting that was productive. Unless, however, you consider a look of back patting going on between them to be productive…
That’s your opinion–and you don’t sit and watch them read through packages of paper each week to prepare for the meeting. And you don’t witness them taking calls each week from the same people harassing them about the same issues–unless you’re one of those people.
I say bullshit to that one. It is evident watching them perform at the Council meeting that the only time that they have even read the Agenda is when it is presented to them at the meeting.
Let’s be honest here Mr high and mighty, it is time for this Council to hang up their hats and take up golfing or better yet travel to China with Herb…
When elections come along and the incumbents are succesful, then I’ll gladly call myself Mr High and Mighty. Until then, please keep your ad hominem comments elsewhere.
The bottom line is that they were elected to do a service. Whether or not they did the service well in your own opinion doesn’t matter. They did it, and they deserve to be paid for it—and even then, paid badly.
Well lets just put it this way eccentric. The only reason that this council will be successful is because no one else wants to go in and clean up the mess they have made.
As far as being paid badly, well that is debatable. Other City’s of this size pay their council less than what these councillors are making, and have been far more productive.
Please tell me one great thing this Council has done in the last three years that may convince me I am wrong!
