Did you see the thing in the news about the city council members in California that got paid $100,000.00 a year for part time work?

What’s up with that?  I’m a county commissioner, I make about a $1,000.00 a month and everybody I know thinks I’m over paid.

It gets better.  The chief of police made about half a million dollars and the city administrator got almost $800,000.00, which is about twice what President Obama makes.

I’m sure there are challenges to running a town of 40,000 people, but the President does have two wars plus that whole recession thing to worry about, so either he’s due a sizeable raise or else the dude in California is making just a smidge too much.
Maybe I’m wrong.  Could be he doesn’t make too much.  I don’t know a lot about California, although I’ve heard it’s an expensive place to live.  Maybe it’s just one of those enclaves of rich folks where being paid $100,000.00 for part-time work is just petty cash.

Strike two.  The per capita income is around $24,000.00 a year and about one fourth of the population lives under the poverty level, so scratch the “rich folks” theory.
I read a couple more articles and found that the base pay of the city council was $1,800.00/year, but the council members boosted their paychecks by serving on other boards, such as economic development and waste management, for $18,000.00 a year. So, that kind of makes sense -- it can be very time consuming to put yourself out there, working on all those extra boards and special projects.

Strike three.  Turns out many of those boards met during regular council meetings and one of the special meetings was convened at 7:21 p.m. and adjourned at 7:22 p.m.
Eighteen thousand dollars for one minute of work? My calculator can’t even figure out the hourly wage for that little enterprise.  In addition, the city employees, or at least the top three, got automatic annual 12% raises. I wonder how they decided that 12% a year forever was fair? 

So, really, how could this happen?  I mean, it’s not funny.  A small city, full of people working too hard for not enough money, being shamelessly screwed by their own neighbors.  Easy.  It’s a simple recipe with only two ingredients.  First, this town of 40,000 people, with about 25,000 eligible voters, held an election in which only 400 people voted.  When only one percent of the voters show up, you get what you deserve and I can guarantee you that it ain’t gonna be pretty.  I’m over half a century old and although I truly believe that people are basically good, I also truly believe that people behave better when someone is watching.

And that leads to the second ingredient.  This town didn’t have a newspaper, there were no media who covered city council meetings, no one paying attention when the folks in charge voted themselves automatic, yearly, 12% raises.