Doug Clark: Council raises might lead to work done

Today I’d like to address the shocking rise in the price of gas.

Oh, yeah. The prices at the gasoline pumps are alarming, too.

But I’m talking about the soon-to-be skyrocketing cost of Spokane City Council hot air, which is a whole lot more troubling.

Can you believe it?

Some knucklehead commission nobody ever heard of wants to give council members a 67 percent pay raise.

And it’s a done deal unless angry voters storm City Hall with pitchforks and flaming torches.

Plus they need to collect enough signatures to get it on the November ballot.

A 67 percent pay raise?

That’s like giving seagulls outside Dick’s more french fries.

That’s like giving Wazzu frat boys jobs at a brewery.

That’s like giving Orville Moe another racetrack.

No good can come of it.

Now I don’t harbor any ill will against our council members. They strike me as a bunch of fine, upstanding citizens who simply took a wrong turn and wound up in public office.

But that garbage scow has steamed out of port, as they say.

This just isn’t the best economic climate for a political pay raise. Every time I turn around somebody’s got a hand in my pocket.

You just about need to take out a second mortgage to buy a loaf of bread.

American Airlines just started charging customers to check one lousy bag.

Pretty soon they’ll start making passengers pay an “upchuck fee” to use the airsick bags.

Even the Spokane River is suffering from inflation.

Many downtown panhandlers now won’t accept anything smaller than a five.

It’s a mess, I tell ya.

But let’s look at the numbers.

For regular council members, the proposed pay hike would boost their annual salaries from $18,000 to $30,000.

That means it’ll cost taxpayers $12,000 more a year per councilman to not get the streets fixed.

I know. The council hasn’t had a raise since 1991.

Well, I haven’t had a decent hairline since the Carter administration and you don’t see me crying about it.

Besides, these people knew what the salary was when they ran for office.

If they want to supplement their incomes, they can always use the tried- and-true methods like graft or bribes or selling the mayor’s furniture on eBay.

Any council members who can’t live with the pay can always quit.

A lot of people I know have half a mind to go into politics.

And as Will Rogers once observed, half a mind is all it takes.

The council president’s salary would leap from $40,000 to $55,000 a year under this proposal.

Come on now. What’s Joe Shogan going to do with another 15 grand?

He certainly doesn’t have much of a wardrobe budget.

I would have been a lot more apt to support a City Council pay raise back when Steve Eugster and Roberta Greene were practically mud wrestling each other every Monday night.

The city was still on the Road to Ruin, sure. But council meetings were more fun than a three-ring flea circus.

This current bunch has the charisma of leftover lutefisk.

According to the newspaper story, a guy from the Salary Review Commission was claiming that serious-minded council folks work more 40 hours a week.

See, that’s the problem.

They’re spending too much time on the job.

Government isn’t like running a Burger King. It doesn’t improve with effort.

The more our leaders put into government the worse things get for us.

The council needs to take it easier.

After all, serving on the Spokane City Council is supposed to be for part-time troublemakers.

A 67 percent salary bump could turn them into professionals.