By Neena Strichart
We had a busy day at work this past Tuesday. Besides our regular day-to-day activities of running a newspaper, we had the opportunity to play host to Congresswoman Laura Richardson and many of her staff members for nearly two hours. We appreciate the time they gave us and the candidness of answers to our questions.
After work I dashed over to Signal Hill’s National Night Out event at Reservoir Park. What a blast! Families having fun, kids running amok, music, food and information tables galore made for an ultra-fun evening.
While I was there, I had a conversation with a woman who was staffing a booth for a local nonprofit organization. After noticing my name badge, she was quick to ask how we go about getting more people to vote in Signal Hill in order to vote out some of our seated council members.
I won’t go into all the details of our discussion, but she did voice her concerns about two things: how long our councilmembers have been serving (Signal Hill does not have term limits); and how much money they make. I’m sure the whole city of Bell debacle prompted her obvious yet questionable ire. I pointed out that although we’ve had several non-incumbent candidates in the last few years, I find it disconcerting that no one seems to take the time to attend council meetings on a regular basis besides me and my reporter Nick Diamantides (two exceptions include commissioners Tom Benson and Frank Virga, who are regular attendees). The woman made it clear that attending meetings shouldn’t be a criterion for a person to be deemed a good candidate for council. I disagree, but enough about that— for now.
I did my best to reassure her that our councilmembers make very little money for their time and effort. In fact, when I explained that their base pay was actually less than $500 a month, she thought I wasn’t being truthful— or at least felt I was misinformed. Oh, well.
Coincidentally or not, that same night’s council meeting brought about conversation on that very topic. Each councilmember and our mayor Ed Wilson, as well as our city manager Ken Farfsing and our city attorney Dave Aleshire made public comments about the troubles in the city of Bell. Councilmember Noll said he has received several inquires regarding his salary since the Bell thing came to light. The meeting then went to a full-on discussion about the council and their compensation. Talk about perfect timing to garner the proof I needed for the skeptical woman at the park. Too bad she Âwasn’t in the audience. Sure enough, I was vindicated— the councilmembers do indeed receive $494 per month as a base salary with an additional $48 per redevelopment meeting and $12 each for the annual Housing Authority meeting. Not a way to get rich, nor much of a glamorous job.
I’m sure many other small cities are on a similar pay schedule. Unfortunately, due to the exposure of the corruption of one small town, honest cities of similar size will be suspected of malfeasance and will unnecessarily be put under a financial microscope.
“Corruption is authority plus monopoly minus transparency.”
— Author Unknown
