Councilmember Costs and Longevity

Whether you agree on term limits or not, there is always a silver lining ...

Whether the cost per councilmember per month is somewhere between $8,167 (Grogan) and $1,132 (Baylock) our most senior councilmember has certainly given us mileage for our money!

Ms. O'Mahoney was first elected in 1989 and has served this City well with her hardwork, dedication and leadership. F

- Written by Fiona

Comments

[Joanne]

The difference between Grogan's figure and Baylock's is that Grogan also included the value of lifetime health insurance for a family, whereas Baylock's figure only included the pension amount of 2% of salary for each year worked. The question to me is not whether the life-time health insurance and pension are too generous for a handful of city council members, but whether the City can afford to give these generous benefits to EVERY city employee (especially when there does not appear to be money to keep the streets cleaned and the trees trimmed).
I agree: O'Mahoney has served the city long and well.

That's it. We can't even manage to do very basic 'cleanliness,' and the attitude of some merchants doesn't help.

Another question I have it why each year, discretionary funds are given to out of town groups (non-profits or other)? It is very nice of this city to do, but I'd say we should clean ourselves up first, then give money away to others.

I can also see why people get angry that monies haven't been spent on longterm flood control out of the general fund, too. In the good times, we were busy throwing around money to this or that consultant for things like the community center, that may never come to fruition. I'm not sure we could chock that up to the 'perfect storm,' like the high school likes to say. Why didn't they start putting aside money ten years ago? Did we, please clarify somebody--you'd think with two 'numbers' people onboard, (Galligan and O'Mahony) would have thought ahead. I support a bond, but I do wonder why it wasn't addressed out of the regular budget over a longer period of time.

[Joanne]

"Why it wasn't addressed out of the regular budget over a longer period of time?" Because when the economy is up and money is rolling in everyone thinks the yearly increases will keep going on forever, because our decisions always look better (or worse) in hindsight, and because having one's name on a new storm drain isn't nearly as "sexy" as having one's name on a new soccer center. It was courageous of this council to go out for a non-sexy bond...but it won't be considered courageous if they keep asking for a bond while at the same time they: 1) increase retirement benefits and, 2) ask prisoners or citizen-volunteers to clean the streets.