This past week, Q-line asked:.3 Do you feel the City Council should meet more often, and if so, do they deserve a pay raise? Here are your responses: “FIRST OF ALL, NO MATTER WHAT THEY decide about the number of meetings, they should not receive any increase in pay. They are overpaid right now. Look around the city. Would you, in good conscience, take money for this mess? They have succeeded in destroying a lovely, quiet beach community, and turned it into an overbuilt, dirty looking, traffic-clogged nightmare.”
“I PERSONALLY DON’T THINK THAT THE City Council should meet often. Now this pay hike, to me, is ridiculous. Every one of these City Council people are people who are making plenty of money on their other jobs. What they do on the City Council is not worth more than about $25 to $50 a month. Giving them more time to sit there and do nothing is really ridiculous. I can’t understand all that.”
“I THINK ANY CHANGE TO BE MADE FOR our councilmembers should wait until after the next election. Too many of us are against most of the actions taken by our present Council and they won’t listen to us.”
“SANTA MONICA COUNCILMEMBERS should be paid a salary comparative to those councilmembers of municipalities in size and population. The main issues in Santa Monica have not changed in years and will remain as follows: Airport noise, pier, rent control, schools, parking, traffic congestion, what to do with Santa Monica Place shopping center and Third Street Promenade … More meetings with a question mark. One would have to be masochistic to sit through and endure the rehashing. More meetings would be as useless as whipping a thoroughbred horse that is running 20 lengths behind in the pack.”
“YES, I THINK THE CITY COUNCIL should meet more often, but those dunderheads should not receive more pay the way they’ve been treating our city, cutting down our beloved trees and such.”
“NO, I DON’T THINK THEY SHOULD GET a pay hike. I don’t think they do that hard of work to deserve a pay hike and I don’t think they are a good City Council to begin with. As far as meeting more often, instead of their marathon meetings, they should have shorter meetings and, yes, meet more often.”
“IS THIS A TRICK QUESTION? WELL, I’ll answer it if it’s serious. No, they should not meet more often or get a pay hike. It was Will Rogers or Mark Twain or someone like that who said ‘no man’s freedom or property are safe while the legislature is in session.’”
“RATH ER THAN M EETI NG MORE frequently, they should have the City Council meet less frequently, say, once a year. Or better yet, get rid of them completely so they can save money without having to pay anything to them or do anything because these people cause more trouble than they’re worth anyway. Every time they have a meeting or do something, it ends up creating more hassles and problems than they are trying to fix, so better to get rid of them completely.”
“THEY SHOULD MEET MORE OFTEN, BUT they shouldn’t get a pay hike until they start being more accessible to the citizens, and also get rid of that stupid rule that you can’t ask questions. That’s totally manipulatory.”
“NO, THEY SHOULDN’T MEET MORE often and they certainly don’t deserve a pay hike. They don’t do anything now. We’ve still got the bad homelessness, the parking is terrible. What do they do? And, by the way, who pays for all the snacks they have in the back, they are all constantly going to in the meeting?”
“I DON’T THINK THE COUNCIL SHOULD BE meeting more often. They only create more problems that cost us taxpayers money. That would justify them getting a pay raise by spending more time at council meeting. I definitely object to it.”
“NO, THE COUNCIL DOES ENOUGH STUPID things with the meetings they already have, like cutting down perfectly good trees.”
“KEVIN MCKEOWN SHOULD BE THE full-time mayor with staff, with Ken Genser as his assistant. The other councilmembers don’t represent the residents’ interests anyway, so we don’t need them.”
“FIRST CHOICE, THE CITY COUNCIL should meet once a week. They should receive no pay or lifetime medical so that members with a pre-existing illness cannot access expensive, tax-supported health care. Former councilmembers will not do business directly or indirectly with City Hall. That way, they will not be able to influence City Council policy in regards to bums, low income housing, light rail, and any more development. This will end lifetime employment. Second choice, each councilmember receives $1,000 a month for every $100 million knocked off the budget; $10 for every one of the 8,000 parking meters that are eliminated; $100 for every restricted parking area free to those affected; $50 for every empty Blue Bus that is canceled; $100 to rid the mall of its wrongly named street performers; $50 for every millionaire’s jet; $5 for every helicopter flying over the beach area; and $10 for every bum and low income housing recipient working at a hotel.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 17, 2007. Read the original PDF.