Council votes for a new round of employee raises

The words Newark citizens needed to hear from their government came from Rick Henderson during Monday's city council meeting: "I'm here to support the citizens and not the management." Hooray for Rick.

And hooray for Doug Marmie and Dave Rhodes who voted against jacking up the police chief's pay in an effort to prevent a new round of pay increases for city workers.

As explained by Kent Mallett in the Advocate's report Wednesday (5/30/07):

"Rhodes said an increase in the police chief's salary means an identical increase in the fire chief's salary because they always have been equal. Those raises then increase the disparity between the chiefs and their bosses, the safety director and the mayor, along with department directors."

The idea of paying more for the chief came about because the city is replacing Darrel Pennington, who retired May 4. Newark is being told, in effect, that city administrators couldn't find a new chief to work for the going rate, but the three nay-voting councilmen disagreed.

Mayor Bain claims higher pay is no problem because "the budget is stabilized." That stabilization came at the expense of higher fees and the double charging citizens for emergency squad services. He can call it "stabilizing" if he wants. Taxpayers might have more nasty names.

Whatever, the rest of city council - including mayoral candidate Bob Diebold - agreed with the Mayor and the Safety Director and voted for the new round of employee raises. And in a few years, when the EMS bonanza is swallowed by ever-greater employee demands and political payoffs by council and administrators, your city will be scrounging for new taxes and higher fees.