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After council members complained that they are paid less than minimum wage, Mountain View voters gave their elected representatives a raise on Tuesday.
Measure A, which would raise City Council pay from $600 a month to $1,000 a month with automatic raises, was favored by 60 percent of voters, according to election results Wednesday morning. It was a wide margin compared to a 2006 effort to boost the salary to $1,500 which failed 52 percent to 48 percent.
Council members said their $600 a month equaled $5 an hour at 30 hours per week, which was the average number of hours members said they spent on the job.
“I think the voters overwhelmingly decided it was time to adjust council compensation for inflation to make it a somewhat more realistic wage in recognition of the work City Council members do,” said longtime council member Mike Kasperzak. “I think it puts to rest this notion that public service is a voluntary service. The president of the U.S. is a public servant, he doesn’t work for free. Police officers are public servants they don’t work for free. Why are public officials expected to give away their time? City Council members are making more important decisions than highly paid staff people.”
Kasperzak said he suspected the Palo Alto City Council would follow suit in raising their pay to $1,000 a month soon.
The only vocal opponent to the raise was local attorney Gary Wesley, who argued that council members receive other benefits, including health benefits, expense accounts, travel reimbursements and stipends for attending regional board meetings. He said they also have the ability to restrict housing supply and approve office growth to drive up the prices of their own homes. All seven home-owning members on the council are “benefiting handsomely,” he wrote.
“It’s less about the money and more about being able to attract a diverse array of candidates,” said Mayor Chris Clark a year ago, joking that his salary on council pays his monthly dry cleaning bill, with a “little left over.”
Some council members said a raise would allow renters and people who have to work for a living to be on council, as current members are either retired, supported by spouses or are business owners or business leaders.
Council pay will now also rise automatically every based on a formula to match inflation, not to exceed 5 percent a year. Any other raises would continue to require voter approval under a provision in the city’s charter.
Mike had the right idea, but $1,000/month is not sufficient. $25/hr. seems about right, and that would be about $3,250 at 30 hrs./week.
Too little, too late. Glad they get a Token raise! How insulting that now they are making about $8 an hour! Big whoop!!!
Worthless salary increase. It never should have been placed on the ballot.
Until the Mountain View city council rises to a leadership position instead of taking direction from city staff, they remain mere figureheads. Their salaries appropriately reflect their impotence.
This article says that the only vocal opponent of this was Gary Wesley. I guess that the writers don’t read their own articles online. I made an extensive argument in the comments section here:
( http://www.mv-voice.com/square/2014/10/10/voter-guide-measure-a-to-raise-city-council-pay )
It appears the writers don’t pay attention to Council Meetings either since I also made extensive comments about this issue as seen here:
http://mountainview.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?clip_id=1628&view_id=&embed=1&player_width=640&player_height=480&entrytime=9516&stoptime=9708&auto_start=1
Also, I was surprised to see in the voter pamphlet that it said that raising the council’s salary would provide for a more diverse council. I think this last election has proved that to be false. From now on, only those that have a lot of money to begin with, and can get the press to at least give them fair coverage, will be able to run, and not many minorities in Mountain View have access to either.
Jim Neal
Old Mountain View