Voters in Pacific Grove will decide on June 2 whether to increase their city councilmembers’ and mayor’s pay by more than double the current amount.
City councilmembers get paid $420 a month to represent their constituents. Measure C would increase that to $987 a month.
Measure C would also raise the mayor’s monthly pay from $700 to $1,645.
The rates were last set in 1998, according to the analysis of the measure from the Pacific Grove City Clerk’s Office.
The amount proposed is equal to a 5% increase since that time, which is what state law allows cities to raise their legislators’ pay by, according to the City Clerk’s Office.
The measure would allow city councilmembers and the mayor to waive part of their salary. Currently they can only waive all of it if they choose to.
The measure also stipulates that there would be no further changes to the pay scale before at least 2031, unless the city charter is amended.
It was placed on the ballot by the City Council.
Supporters cite sub-minimum wage
Former mayors Bill Kampe and Bill Peake, who both signed their name to the supporters’ argument that appears in the city’s official voter guide, said the measure would make up for nearly three decades of failing to adjust the pay of elected officials.
“Councilmembers spend 40 to 60 hours each month on city business: preparing for agenda packages that can run hundreds of pages, serving on city boards and commissions, attending regional meetings, conducting research, and working directly with constituents and City staff,” the former mayors wrote, along with former mayor pro tem Robert Huitt and former councilmember Amy Tomlinson.
“At current pay of $420 per month, that works out to between $7 and $10 per hour, well below California’s minimum wage,” according to the ballot argument.
Opponents say it’s about accountability
Other former elected officials, including former councilmember Debby Beck and former mayor Carmelita Garcia, lambasted the attempt, citing a previous attempt to raise the pay through an ordinance that drew criticism.
“The supporters of Measure C portray this 135% pay increase as a technical update justified under state law,” the measure’s opponents wrote in the voter guide prepared by the city clerk.
“Yet they completely ignore the fact that the Mayor and Council voted to give themselves an immediate pay raise, something state law prohibits, and rejected requests to let voters decide,” according to the opponents’ ballot argument. “As a result, over 1,800 Pacific Grove voters signed a referendum petition challenging the original ordinance. Measure C is on the ballot because concerned voters demanded accountability, and we still do.”
City council and mayoral pay rates vary widely in the state, depending on different factors including population size and workload, according to the California State Controller’s Office.
Pacific Grove’s city councilmembers make about $5,000 a year. That’s less than the $6,000 a year that councilmembers make in similarly-sized Parlier, in Fresno County, but more than the $3,600 a year that councilmembers take home in La Palma, in Orange County.
On the higher end, Los Angeles city councilmembers make over $250,000 a year, according to a report from the state Controller’s Office.