By Jon Wiener
City council members are poised to call a special election for this June in hopes that voters will support tripling their salaries to $18,000 a year.
The council will decide whether to call the election at a Feb. 28 meeting, where it will receive a series of recommendations from its procedures committee (CPC). Those recommendations, finalized at Tuesday’s CPC meeting, include not only the pay raise but also future automatic increases tied to the consumer price index.
“It’s a job, there’s no question. This goes way beyond volunteer work. There are expectations the community has that are fairly demanding,” said council member Laura Macias, who also serves on the CPC. She later added, “We aren’t just doing it for the joy of it. Some of us have to actually pay utilities.”
By law, the only way to change the charter is by referendum, which means council members can’t enact a pay raise themselves. Even so, city attorney Michael Martello has raised concerns about the city running afoul of conflict-of-interest law if council members receive pay raises that they voted on.
The proposed pay raise, which could take effect as soon as next January, also makes it easier for council members to miss meetings without having to pay the $25 fine instituted in 1968.
“This is a different community than it was 20 years ago,” said council member Mike Kasperzak, who originally brought the idea forward. “The expectations are bigger, the responsibilities are bigger.”
The current salaries earned by Mountain View council members are comparable to what neighboring cities pay, with the exception of Sunnyvale (see chart). Council members also have travel budgets, receive free VIP tickets to Shoreline Amphitheatre, and are reimbursed for their mileage. The rotating mayor position earns a 25 percent bonus.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Macias said that the low rate of pay shuts many working people out of the political arena. She also said that it damages the city’s credibility.
“If you want to be taken seriously, you need to be paid more than $500 a month,” said Macias.
But council member Matt Pear said that rather than increasing pay to justify the council’s increasing workload, the city should be trying to cut back on the size of government altogether.
“So much for the proletariat,” a frustrated Pear said under his breath when the other committee members voted to recommend maintaining the mayor’s bonus.
Kasperzak and Macias said they wanted to hold the election in June so as to avoid turning the ballot measure into an issue during the November council election. A special election will cost the city nearly $140,000 in taxpayer money, according to staff estimates — about four times more than if it were held in November.
E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener
