Double the pay of Victoria councillors

Re: “Region struggles to fill jobs,” Jan. 6; “Time ‘too tight’ to review councillors’ pay,” Jan. 7. Compare and contrast these two recent stories. The first story laments that employers can’t attract workers because of the high cost of living in Victoria. The second story tells us that our city councillors on their own are not able to determine right now if they are part-time or full-time workers, or if they are worth more than the lowest-paid municipal employee working for the City of Victoria, or if individuals responsible for spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money should only be making marginally more per year than a 40-hour full-time worker receiving a proposed minimum wage of $15 per hour.

Here is what I suggest: Victoria city council and mayor should vote immediately to double their salaries, and for this increase to take effect immediately following the election in October of this year.

Perhaps then our fair city will be able to attract serious people to our city council who understand the value of a dollar, who can compare apples to apples, who can figure out if they are looking at 75 per cent of a thing or 100 per cent of a thing, and who value their own self-worth as much as their own pet projects, unlike the current lot who will go to the wall for expensive, unwanted and unneeded separated bicycle lanes, but who will meekly accept $12 per hour for a 66-hour work week. Trevor Amon Victoria