by Matt Marquardt –
At Thursday’s city council work session, the council continued to bungle its way through this budget process as a dis-engaged public sat idly by with no input.
As a knee-jerk reaction to the carnage, and seemingly in a ham-handed attempt to repair the damage his reputation will suffer for helping along the eventual crippling of Mason City’s Human Rights agency, Council member Alex Kuhn blurted out the idea that the council should cut its own pay by one-third.
“We should share the pain,” Kuhn said.
Apparently, Kuhn thinks that by cutting his pay he looks like he is making a sacrifice.
What he has actually done is further damage the link between City Hall and the public.
I have already written that public apathy toward City Hall is staggering. Mayor Eric Bookmeyer has dumbed down council meetings to where you need a five-hour energy drink just to stay awake. Most of the work is done before the meetings, most votes are 6-0, and regular folks have been mocked for speaking at the public forums. We have seen anger-prone Scott Tornquist get up and leave a meeting rather than face scrutiny. This mayor and council have made it plain and clear that we are here to serve them, not the other way around.
I have reported that only about 27% of eligible voters turned out in the last two city elections. This could be attributed to a lack of good candidates. Less than 27 people have filed to run for mayor or council since 2007.
Now, with Kuhn’s idea of cutting council pay – and the rest of the council on board – serving on the council will look even less attractive to normal folks who might want to get involved in city government.
I will be the first to say that serving one’s community should not be about getting paid or enriching oneself, but the public disconnect with City Hall is so bad here in Mason City that we have to make it as attractive as reasonably possible.
In reality, the council should have taken a 1.5% raise the same as the non-bargaining employees are taking. And it should get it every year.
As Kuhn stated, Mason City is on solid financial ground. City Hall might be a mess, but Finance Director Kevin Jacobson has served as the bedrock in keeping the city in good shape. There was no good reason to propose the pay cut except to try and repair a reputation.
The council needs to scrap this idea of a $2,500 per year pay cut for council members so that it does not damage future interest in the positions.
Interestingly, three council seats are up for election this year, and those positions just got less attractive for potential challengers to the incumbents, should they decide to run.
In my opinion, there will be even fewer future council candidates if council pay is lowered this drastically.
I also believe that a common trait with candidates will be that they will have a vested financial interest in controlling what happens at City Hall beyond serving the best interests of the public. For example, Jean Marinos opposed the Anchor Housing development on Mason City’s west side, clearly a development Mason City needs. But rather than support the project, Marinos and her husband bashed it because they are landlords and don’t want the competition from more housing units. Marinos is not on the council for the $7,400 pay per year. She is there to control City Hall perhaps at times so she can benefit. Marinos has further admitted that she will solve no problems for her constituents, but instead hand everything to city staff. She had the audacity to campaign on this platform.
Mason City needs fewer people like Marinos on the council and more people from its foundation: Hard working folks who just want to serve and better the community, people who generally want to serve their neighbors. Our current mayor and (most of the) council do not fit this description.
By the way, Mayor Eric Bookmeyer quickly changed the subject when Finance Director Kevin Jacobson asked Bookmeyer how much of a pay cut the mayor was going to take.
Did some quick checking on other cities of comparable size to MC’s for council pay – Iowa City $7,072
Muscatine $4000
Clinton $6000
These are what I found when I searched city council salaries in Iowa. I didn’t want to get into it deeply, so if anyone is really interested in research, it would be interesting to do a comparative study throughout Iowa. Seems from the preliminary looks, and from what I have seen them do, that MC’s council members are overpaid anyway.
Most Council(wo)men serve on the Council because they want to help better the community. They don’t do it for the money. I wouldn’t vote for a person who ran for office just because they wanted a steady paycheck. You can look at our representatives in Washington to see people who just do it for the money (and the health insurance).
@Mr Foad – I must disagree with your comments. Our current council people are not there to serve the public. They are there for the power and to control the spending in the city. In other words, they are there to make sure their pet projects downtown and at the Chamber of Commerce get funded. Why do we support the museum and let people go hungry and homeless in our city? Why do we spend thousands on statues and the un-necessary remodeling of city hall? Why do we spend thousand on studies by consultants when we have the ability to do it ourselves? And most of all, why did we spend millions on a downtown area that no one goes to except the dentist, cpa’s and the snooty wealthy?
This is an example of Mason City’s old guard trying to remain in power,manipulate and take direction ONLY when it clearly benefits their own pocket books.
Mason City needs on the council some of these new business owners that have tried to establish a presence here, only to get no help or ridicule. Mason City needs to return to supporting Mason City businesses welcome to town new businesses, and I don’t mean that old guard ‘chamber’ welcome either.All our chamber does is stick out their hands for fees to join and eat food at their paid members expense -night outs.
This whole ‘old guard’ system must change. City boards must evolve and Mason City must spend and support stores and events.
Matt-you are correct about the apathy and unfortunately I am one of those people. I used to take a healthy interest in city government when Max, Don and Jeff were there because at least they would listen to you. They may not always agree but, they always listened. Today if you were so foolish as to stand up to give a point you just take a chance on being ridiculed with no chance that they will listen. I firmly believe that they settle all issues before the meeting and just do a rubber stamp for show. Yes, that is illegal but has to be proved. It is still my opinion. I would like to start going to the meetings again but what is the use?