At ages 7 and 9, my kids are growing like weeds. They’re growing almost faster than I can acknowledge.
The same goes for Raleigh. A fact I liked to share when former mayor Charles Meeker was in office was that Raleigh grew so quickly during his tenure as mayor that one out of three Raleigh citizens had never known another mayor. That’s right: in the span of ten years Raleigh population grew by fifty percent.
Fifty percent! It’s hard to wrap one’s mind around that.
Over the holidays my aunt came up to visit from Tallahassee. Knowing my interest in politics, she asked if I was interested in running someday.
“If only it paid the bills,” I sighed, explaining how our mayor and councilors serve as de facto volunteers.
My aunt was surprised that Raleigh, the country’s 43rd largest city, has volunteer leaders. “Even little Tallahassee pays its mayor and city commissioners,” she pointed out.
These thoughts were on my mind when my friend Will Allen wrote an opinion piece for the News and Observer, urging that Raleigh fairly compensate its leaders for the time they put in:
It’s past time we began paying our mayor and council members what they are worth. I propose four changes:
Increase salaries to $25,000 per year for council members and $35,000 for the mayor;
Allow them to participate in the city’s health care and insurance plans, the same plans and on the same bases as offered to senior city employees;
Adopt an annual salary increase formula similar to that used by the Greensboro City Council;
Budget for a small City Council/ mayor research staff (perhaps three positions to start).
As the old saying goes, we get what we pay for. The modest investment I propose would ensure that we attract and keep top talent such as we have now to serve on the Raleigh City Council in the future.
“As the old saying goes, we get what we pay for.” That’s the money quote right there. We complain when politicians cater to special interests instead of heeding their constituents, yet we expect superhuman work from them for almost no compensation. Councilors put in a huge number of hours doing city work while (in many cases) having to hold down another job. No wonder many are either independently wealthy or are beholden to special interests.
I try to avoid wading into the message forums of the local news media because the stupid … it … it burns. In the comments of one recent story about local politics, one misinformed man wondered what the city leaders were doing to earn what we the citizens pay them. I was this close to posting a snarky reply when I realized that his view is very common, that people just assume our mayor and councilors earn a salary for their work.
Another area where we’ve fallen behind is the idea that a two-year term is enough. Raleigh representatives serve for two years while representatives of other major local governments serve four year terms. Durham’s mayor serves two years and its councilors serve four, while both Cary’s mayor and councilors serve four year terms. Wake County commissioners serve four years. Why does Raleigh want to distract its leaders with constant campaigning if it doesn’t have to?
It garnered a small mention in the paper, but Councilor John Odom suggested this very idea at last week’s council session:
“It’s hard to run a campaign after you’ve been in (for one year) and you have to start campaigning,” he told fellow council members during a meeting this week.
As his fellow councilor Randy Stagner agreed, it is an idea worth discussing, and I hope Raleigh will have that discussion.
In nearly every respect, Raleigh is now a grown-up city with grown up issues that come along with that. It’s high time we start thinking that way. If we expect the best effort from our leaders, we should compensate them accordingly. If we expect them to focus on their job as a city leader rather than keeping their seat, we should provide them longer terms.
Neither of these two improvements is especially expensive or difficult. It just takes our leaders being willing to fix things, and for the public to know they need fixing. I hope the message gets out.