HomeMy WebLinkAbout2/4/2020 Item 9, Schmidt
Wilbanks, Megan
From:Richard Schmidt <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Agenda Comment: Council Compensation
Feb. 1. 2020
Re: Council compensation proposal
Dear Mayor and Council members:
I urge you to NOT ADOPT the proposed exorbitant increases in council/mayoral compensation.
Please consider these points:
1. Compared to past councils, you are very well compensated, and instituting these huge increases would
just make you look greedy. Voters tend to dislike greedy politicians.
2. The comp cities survey suggests no increase is warranted, as our council is already compensated at
about the median level, and our mayor well in excess of median.
3. The rationale for these increases seems to be that there’s a huge pool of poverty-stricken yet
potentially wonderful council members who are deterred from seeking office merely because they feel
they need higher compensation in order to do it. There is zero data to back this rationale, and a great deal
of evidence to contradict it. The rationale, at best, is a fig newton of the imagination of a small number of
susceptible individuals, at worst malevolent “feel good” rhetorical manipulation to get yourselves a “pay
raise.” We all know these compensation increases will not materially increase the applicant pool.
4. Consider the evidence that poverty is not a block to serving:
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• Our current mayor.
• Donald Hedrick, who by all appearances is poor as a church mouse, yet runs with hope and pride in
every election.
• Our beloved Bill Roalman, who was so poor when he ran he lived in a tiny RV at the trailer park on
Higuera near the Creamery, where poor people could live with decency till the city stood by while it was
gentrified for developer profit.
• Keith Gurnee, who when he ran was a student without a job who lived in student rental housing.
• Although I’ve never held elective office, I have served 19 years on advisory bodies during much of which
I subsisted at a poverty level unimaginable to any of you. I didn’t expect a handout from the city, I served
with pride and honor at being able to have these opportunities for public service. Lest any of you dismiss
this by saying these were only commission appointments, I’d point out that during the two years we spent
revising the LUCE, our planning commission met 6 times a month with a ton of “homework” between
meetings.
It is insulting and demeaning to suggest honorable qualified people who really want to serve will fail to do
so due to compensation level.
5. Being a council member is a public service position of trust, not a job. There is no rationale for
compensating such a position of public service as if it’s a job.
6. Being mayor, per our charter, is a ceremonial position and presiding officer position. The mayor has no
actual governmental responsibilities beyond that. Our mayor does not run the city, as mayors of LA and
SF do. We have professional bureaucrats for those functions. A huge amount of compensation beyond
that of council members for our mayor is thus unjustified. Your median comp cities make this
clear – mayoral median is a mere $50 per month more than council medians.
7. American democracy is predicated on the idea politicians are mere citizens who step into public life for
a time, then return to the citizen base. Remember George Washington’s retreat to Mt. Vernon after the
presidency. The Founders did not intend the creation of a permanent political class. We, unfortunately,
now find ourselves victimized at both national and state levels by precisely such a political class.
Raising compensation as proposed at the city level will create a local political class. This is anti-
democratic, and takes us down the wrong road. Progressives need to remember the day they’re out of
office will come, and your imagined progressive compensation scheme can then be stood on its head and
used by others for their own mischief and to your disadvantage.
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8. Raising one’s own compensation is always a tricky matter. In this instance, if done as recommended, it
will amount to self-dealing. No council person who votes for this compensation should ever be allowed to
benefit from it. If you pass this, you must – to retain public probity – include an absolute prohibition on
its ever applying to any of you.
Richard Schmidt
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