Cowtown Council Seeks 540% Pay Hike

A little talked about proposed City Charter Amendment would give Fort Worth City Council members a pay raise of over %540 the S-T reported today.

Proposition 1

• An amendment of the City Charter, Chapter III, Section 3, to be effective October 1, 2006, to increase the compensation paid to each city council member to $25,000 per year and $29,000 per year for the mayor.

Currently council members get paid $75 for each weekly meeting they attend. Mayor Moncrief says that the pay raise, "would attract better candidates." So, by putting this amendment before voters, can we assume the current councilmembers are admitting that they are really not smart enough to be on the council?

The mayor went on to say that the pay hike would help repay councilmembers for the amount of time they spend on city business. Moncrief explained that councilmembers, "no longer just come in on Tuesday, make a few decisions and go back to your own business." Well, why not? Then why do we paid the City Manager a six-figure salary?

What the mayor and his minions fail to realize is that the City Charter established the low pay for a specific reason. The citizen's that originally approved the charter did not want professional politicians micro-managing city business. It's bad enough we have to put up with dumb politicians trying to run every minute aspect of the city now. Do we have to pay them more to do so?