Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

The nice thing about this line of work I'm in is there is always going to be something that surprises me.

I'm still surprised about what went on at last Monday's meeting of Township council.

I was a little surprised at what council did, but I'm really surprised by the public reaction, or lack thereof.

Councillors awarded themselves substantial raises last week. Mayor Margaret Black will see her annual remuneration increasing by about 24.68 per cent, and that's not counting the pay she gets for sitting on York Regional council, nor does it take into account stipends she receives for other bodies on which she serves. Township councillors will be getting 23.19 per cent more.

"There'll be hell to pay when this gets out," I remember thinking as I started to realize what kind of raises these seven folks were looking at. I evidently was wrong. There's been no reaction at all.

I wasn't hoping for reaction, any more than I ever hope for bad weather. But I like to think of myself as a realist.

I have repeatedly gone on the record maintaining that elected officials are just like the rest of us. They require food, shelter and cover, and many of them are responsible for other people with the same needs. They are performing a service to the public and should be adequately compensated for services rendered. It is true that some of these people perform better than others, but there are regular elections, at which time we are able to address these situations.

There are many who argue that elected officials chose to get into politics, so they shouldn't set their expectations too high. There is a certain amount of merit to that, but it's also very true that if you want good people to seek these offices, you have to have some carrots ready for them, because there are lots of sticks too.

Money isn't the only benefit to holding office. There is a certain satisfaction of trying to do something for one's community. And there's a certain gratification to one's ego.

I don't mean that as a knock against politicians, but I believe they have to have big egos in order to stand up to the criticism to which they are subjected, not to mention the sometimes dirty tactics that opponents can pull. And then there are the editorials and commentaries that some writers come up with (but not nice guys like me).

Any elected official worth his or her salt spends considerable time being visible in the community, meaning they are sitting ducks for people with axes to grind. I've heard of municipal politicians being called to account for things over which they have no jurisdiction. They just end up catching the heat because they are convenient.

And then there are the hours. Councillor Jeff Laidlaw told his colleagues last Monday night that he had compiled a list of the hours he put into the job in October. It came to 15 hours of research, 15 hours of reading, 20 hours of meeting with residents, 20 hours of working on and responding to e-mails and 36 different meetings and events which took up 108 hours, totalling 178 hours for the month.

While I have no way of verifying the amount of time Laidlaw works, I have seen the agendas that are available to the public and know how much reading goes into them. As well, there are agendas for closed-session meetings that I would never see (I'd have to get elected to get a gander at those). I also know that Laidlaw is a pretty visible councillor in the community, so I am inclined to accept the figures he presented.

It works out to about 40 hours per week, which is pretty formidable, considering it's supposedly a parttime job.

So I personally don't begrudge councillors giving themselves nice raises.

I was a little surprised by something the mayor said, namely that she's been criticized for a lot of things over the years, but never for the money she makes. I know she's been subjected to a lot of flack, simply because of the abuse I've received when I've tried to defend her in print.

The amount of these increases was established through a comparison of what other municipalities pay their politicos. I don't know if I like that method of deciding an issue like this. Every municipality is different, with varying issues, needs and attitudes. Besides, I've never been a big fan of employing a "monkey-see, monkey-do" approach for setting any type of public policy. On the other hand, I can't think of better way to deal with this issue.

As well, it points to the clear fact that King had fallen behind the trend when it comes to what it pays councillors. Black herself commented that it's something that previous councils would have been reluctant to deal with, and that reluctance kept the Township off the pace.

So this is a case of playing catch-up, and the amounts involved are not too great. The total increase for the whole council will come to less than $35,000 annually. But we're still talking about increases in excess of 23 per cent, and they are retroactive to the start of the year. That's pretty impressive, no matter what line of work you're in.

But the interesting part of all this discussion was no one spoke against it. One councillor was a little concerned about the retroactive provisions, but they were all willing to accept the raise. And many of these people made the point that they're not in it for the money.

Any one of them could have made a lot of political hay by opposing the increase. None of them did. That might be a very strong indicator of how appropriate this raise really is.

The lack of public reaction might be stronger still.