The Editor,
Last July, Port Coquitlam council implemented a new pay policy for our mayor and councillors. This policy, among other things, states on Jan. 1 of each year, their remuneration will be revised to reflect the average of the two Metro Vancouver municipalities immediately larger and the two immediately smaller than Port Coquitlam.
This calculation also applies to the acting mayor's stipend and transportation allowances. And this will be on top of the insane raise they gave themselves last summer (27% for our mayor and 42% for our councillors).
Another perk of this policy is the mayor's transition allowance. When the mayor leaves office, he will get one month's pay for every year he is in office for up to six months. The thing that is interesting about this is our Mayor could lose an election - get fired by voters - and potentially walk away with a $42,000 parting gift from us. How many of us in the real world if fired could walk away with a $42,000 gift from our employer? When hell freezes over, maybe. I think a lot of us would be lining up to be fired if that were the case.
Coquitlam council was debating a 4% raise a couple of months ago. Half of council was members were against it because it would not be fair to the residents in these economic hard times. It narrowly passed by one vote. That was 4%. Our council gave themselves a monstrous raise by comparison and not one person on PoCo council spoke against it.
Shame on you all.
Wayne Kilthau, Port Coquitlam
