Ron Kaye blog, Ron Kaye L.A., posted the idea of a pay cut by half for City Council, "Paying City Hall Officials What They're Worth: How to Cut Their Salaries in Half," by Ron Kaye, June 14, 2009. I am in full agreement with that and have long thought that it should be done. It mightg be a drop in the bucket when compared to all the other budget items of the City business, but you won't see CMs do it voluntarily. And though it may only be symbolic, and so much of things today are of little substance and are only important because they ARE symbolic, it needs to be done.
The idea of a pay cut is like the thinking when giving gifts: "it's the thought that counts." Here it's definitely the thought, and that is that they don't deserve the hefty pay days, about $15,000/month salary each, and the thought on their part that they are doing a lousy job collectively and for most, individually, too.
There are some comments appearing on Mayor Sam's blog at "My comment on Ron Kaye's website/blog" https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8826939&postID=447159087728310650 by Phil Jennerjahn, one of the blog's contributors and an unsuccessful challenger to Mayor Tony. He gets lots of criticism for his views that are not always clear without further clarification needed, and this is no exception.
The bad thing about a pay cut of any kind is that it would not happen soon enough to hit them all before several of them are termed out anyway. The act is still worth doing for correcting a wrong that was that free ride on the State judge's pay scale with automatic raises for no other reason than time has passed. Merit is irrelevant; and you would not find much merit in evaluating most of what's done by many CMs. Some are good at moments, Zine probably being the best one for that. Others are plainly working for somebody but it's not the residents and taxpayers of the City.
Time to change this and bring salaries into line with reality.
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