We can see both sides of complex issue concerning officials’ pay raises
Rio Rancho City Council has a tendency to keep things interesting; seldom do we wonder what they’re doing — it’s always in the news and always attracts discussion.
The past few weeks, city councilors have been discussing whether to give pay raises to city officials — the mayor, the municipal judge and themselves. It’s a subject that has generated strong opinions and always does, whether it’s on the municipal level or the national level. This time, however, it has been different since it comes only four months after the voters turned down the pay increases in the charter amendments election.
For us, it’s more an intellectual discussion than it is that the council voted to approve the raises. (Interestingly, Mayor Gregg Hull — and Councilor Dawnn Robinson — voted against the raises. Councilor David Bency was absent.) In reality, we are probably glad because we aren’t sure how we would have voted.
On one hand, we favored the pay increase for the mayor in March and voted for it. We feel strongly that requiring a mayor to work full time makes it mandatory for us, as a city, to pay full-time wages, commensurate with other cities our size. We were disappointed when the charter amendment was defeated.
It’s impossible to say why it was defeated and we are not going to speculate; speculations tend to boost whatever side of the argument one favors since nobody really knows why.
It would be easy for us just to say increasing the mayor’s pay is what we wanted, anyway, so we’re glad the council is doing it for us.
On the other hand, the thing about democracy is that, generally, the majority wins. Therefore, the voters chose to turn down the pay increases, so that’s the way it should be. It’s difficult to argue with that point of view. When a majority of the people vote one way, they nearly always win the argument.
However (there’s always a “however” isn’t there?), when the people turned down the charter amendment, they left control of the pay issue with the City Council, as it always has been. So, the council is doing only what it is mandated to do — and probably should have done when the mayor’s job was switched from parttime to full-time.
The council is resolving a problem in the city as the elected councilors see fit. That is their responsibility. But the timing is probably not the greatest. We can still vividly remember the March election and its outcome. Even though the raises won’t go into effect until after the next election, people tend to perceive that elected officials are voting themselves more money, against the electorate.
Elected city councilors vote for what they think is best for the city. It is a perplexing problem, made more complex by the fact that our city councilors are human, and bring with them a set of ideas and ideals and life experiences that determine how they look at the various issues. We can’t speak for them, nor can we always completely understand why they do what they do.
It’s much too easy to say, “Oh well, it’s just ‘Politics as usual,’ and ‘You can’t trust City Hall.’” But it’s not that simple, nor is it all bad. There are valid arguments for raising the officials’ pay and it’s equally understandable why some would think it’s wrong.
Kudos to our councilors for taking a stand.