Why of course the members of the Charlotte City Council deserve a raise.
They make just $23,463 a year -- a little more than $11 an hour. It's hard to live on that. Just ask the 100-some city employees who make less than $25,000 a year.
Of course, there is the small difference that the council salaries are side money -- most members have full-time jobs. And it's also true that the office comes with a few perks, such as the power of running a large American city, and the trips you get to take to other cities, and the springboard to higher office, and all those developers schmoozing you for votes ...
Wait. Somehow I have strayed to the wrong side of the point here.
The point is, of course council members deserve the 27 percent raise that City Manager Curt Walton is proposing. (Mayor Pat McCrory would get a 19 percent raise, to $39,900.) This includes a $4,000 car allowance, which of course is common for those of you making 11 bucks an hour. Feel free to negotiate that with your boss.
Walton also wants to give other city employees an average raise of 3.5 percent, plus a little extra for workers on the lower end of the scale. Council members normally get half the raises that other city workers get. Walton says this year's big raise would put them back in line.
Makes perfect sense. In fact, let's do something to put council members even more in line with other city employees.
Let's give them a job evaluation.
Most of us out here in the working world have to go through an eval at least once a year. Some of the luckier ones have an eval once a quarter. This ritual is something that workers all over the country look forward to, in much the same way you would look forward to getting hit in the groin with a line drive.
Council members do have to run for office every two years, and of course, we voters occasionally have to lay them off.
But a good boss will tell you that you can never spend enough time in meetings. And so I think that once a month or so, we the people -- the bosses of the city council -- should sit our employees down and ask a few questions.
Such as:
When you speak at a council meeting, how many times do you have something meaningful to say, and how many times are you just enjoying the sound of your own voice?
How often were you willing to make voters mad to do what you think is right?
How often were you willing to make the business community mad to do what you think is right?
Of these issues, which do you think is most important: Crime, taxes, poverty, growth, or re-election?
Do you think this is really the time to take a 27 percent raise?
And how in the world do you expect to run the city when you're going to spend the next six months gallivanting around the state running for governor?
(Oh, sorry -- that's just for the mayor.)
IN MY OPINION Tommy Tomlinson
