So Councillor Pat Lorje wants to be paid more money for the great job Council is doing and points to her counterparts at the Provincial level. Perhaps she should have continued her political career as an MLA.
Alternatively she wants more Councillors or to designate the position of Councillor as a full-time job. If Councillors are to be designated as full-time, then I would expect everyone holding outside jobs or running businesses to give up those other jobs and to park their butts at City Hall and punch a time clock as do other civic employees.
This Council collaborated with the province to increase their term of office without input from their voters. If they now want to implement changes to their status or give themselves whopping raises, we have a civic election coming this fall and she should lobby for referendum questions on the ballot regarding these issues.
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Just a quick clarification Mistress - There was public consultation by the provincial government on moving from a 3 to a 4 year term. I remember putting my 2 cents in (it was an online survey) about two years ago.
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I'd agree with Lorje on the need for more administrative support.
Currently there is 1/20th of 1 full-time admin for each councillor. I think increasing that to 0.5 FTE per councillor would be a good start (1 admin person for every 2 councillors). However, I don't think we need to increase the # of councillors or increase their pay.
Sean, on-line polling has been debunked as a terrible way to get public opinions. Remember the fiasco the city went trough on the recycling survey? Manipulation is so easy.
DeleteMistress the idea of a full time councillor is appealing to me. Maybe then we could actually get some of them to talk to you when you have a concern instead of getting a voice message system.
ReplyDeleteAs to a referendum question...it would be great to pose the idea of doing a full time position but reduce the number down to six councillors and a mayor. Three on the west side and three on the east. If we are always comparing ourselves to our neighbours to the west, I would suggest the numbers of people each councillor would have to deal with would still be less than say a councillor in Calgary. Besides just think of the reduced administrative time for only 6 people and even the council meetings would be shorter. Also any increase in costs like office space at city hall or even admin help would be offset by 4 less on the council payroll.
But then again doubt any of the incumbents would marshall the idea of downsizing.
Again Pat Loreje wants more money. Wasn't this discussed before. I believe the city councillors are paid about 56,000 a year, not including perks. As well, 1/3 of their income is not taxable. Pretty good for a part time job, especially when the majority also have full time jobs. That is probably why they can never be reached to discuss issues, unless it's about the wind turbine, garbage dump or any other issue that concerns Pat and Montgomery Park. How about downsizing as the above comment states: reduce the number of city councillors.
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