And Marsh got a little help from his friend Mr. Zylstra on the CRC dais to support his claims.
Sorry folks, but you don’t understand the term ‘narrow’. Alex Jensen beating Stehly by less then a 100 votes is a ‘narrow’ margin, but this was not. I couldn’t find the exact results because the new city website has blocked all previous election information and a lot of other stuff, not bad for a site that cost us $400K+ 🙁
But I did find a news article that was reporting on the results after the polls closed and this is about as close as I could get;
Yes: 13,466
No: 15,369
As you can see, it wasn’t a ‘narrow’ defeat.
I’m not sure who is pushing the buttons of the CRC members but I can guarantee if this makes the ballot again, I think voters will vote by an even wider margin to reject this. Remember the minimum wage fiasco?
Pay isn’t what is deterring candidates from running, it’s time commitments. I think if we paid the councilors as full-time members (after removing the mayor as a councilor) you would get better candidates. Just look at the current crop of incumbents. Jensen has already bailed on a 2nd term, and I have also heard that Cole and Merkouris are probably not going to seek 2nd terms.
Besides the time commitments, I’m sure that chasing their tails when trying to get assistance from the administration hasn’t been a lot of fun.
The CRC had every change they needed in front of them. Add another council seat, remove mayor as chair and hire a city manager, etc. and while they rejected all of these wonderful ideas they were hellbent on pushing for this back door way of getting raises.
It’s the council’s duties that need to change, not their pay.