Fresno City Council puts power and egos before public service with 70% salary bump
Imagine walking into the boss’s office and demanding a 70% raise.
In any normal job, you’d probably get laughed all the way to the unemployment line.
Things are quite different in the bizarro world of city government, where five Fresno council members can vote themselves a $55,000 pay hike with zero warning and hardly a shred of scrutiny.
Except in this instance, the joke’s on us (i.e. the general public).
What’s especially galling about this money grab is the secrecy by which it was conducted. Three of the council members who voted in favor of the hefty salary increase ― Nelson Esparza, Miguel Arias and Luis Chavez ― were re-elected to second four-year terms weeks before the city’s budget hearings.
Yet none of these so-called public servants (and I use that term loosely) uttered a peep on the campaign trail about raising their own annual pay from $80,000 to $135,044.
Gee, I wonder why. Such a disclosure would’ve surely hurt Esparza, Arias and Chavez at the ballot box. And in Chavez’s case, it may have cost him the election considering challenger Brandon Vang came within 640 votes.
“The voters did not know that they were actually going to bring this forward, which I think is unfair,” Fresno City Councilmember Garry Bredefeld said during last week’s council debate. “That’s dishonest to their constituents. And I think for that reason alone, it shouldn’t even be happening.”
I’m quoting Bredefeld, and agreeing with him to boot? Just kill me now.
Council debate missing a laugh track
Bredefeld was one of two council members to vote against the egregious pay hike. The other was Esmeralda Soria, who isn’t eligible and (I suspect) more concerned with displaying her fiscal conservatism to voters of the 27th California Assembly District above all else.
Listening to Fresno council members rationalize why they deserve higher compensation than their counterparts in other California cities, not to mention state Assembly members and senators (most of whom earn $119,702), the only thing missing was a laugh track.
Yes, I get that they work hard. (Most of them, anyway.) And I get they’re underpaid compared to many bureaucrats and lawyers employed by City Hall. Nor do they receive pensions.
However, each of them knew the drill going in. No one forced Arias to take a salary cut from his former job as a Fresno Unified School District flak. Arias ran for City Council to satisfy his own ambitions and to set himself up for what comes next, be it a higher political office or some handsomely compensated consulting/lobbying gig.
Such is the modus operandi for just about every Fresno council member not on retirement’s doorstep.
At least Arias was being honest in saying aloud what he believes. I can respect that. Which is more than can be said for Chavez and Mike Karbassi, who both proffered the fallacious argument that higher salaries are needed to attract better candidates.
“My hope is that in the future we attract highly qualified professional candidates for the position,” Chavez said.
“We need to do something to attract people to be able to come here,” Karbassi added.
By that logic, Chavez and Karbassi must not think too highly of themselves and their own qualifications. And unless Fresno council members get a huge pay bump, residents of California’s fifth-largest city will be stuck with the likes of them.
Guess that serves us right.
These council members have it easy
Let’s also put to rest the notion that the job of council member is harder than ever and thus deserving of higher compensation.
What pure poppycock. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fresno is awash with millions in federal and state dollars it wouldn’t normally receive. To say nothing about the unexpected tax windfall that greatly exceeded projections.
There’s more money to hire additional police officers, firefighters and emergency dispatchers. More money to tackle homelessness and address the housing crisis. More money to build and maintain parks, repair crumbling infrastructure, fund youth and senior programs and to expand access to arts and culture.
More money for just about everything. All the council members have to do is ensure it gets funneled to the right places.
Not all that long ago, during the recession, elected officials in Fresno had no choice but to make deep cuts to essential services ― or risk the city going bankrupt. Now those were tough, painful decisions. Much tougher and more painful than anything the current septet has faced.
It has been four years since the Fresno City Council bumped its pay from $65,000 to $80,000. If a similar hike had been proposed this time, hardly anyone would’ve batted an eye.
But if council members proceed with this 70% raise Thursday when they vote to adopt the fiscal year 2023 budget, they deserve every ounce of heightened scrutiny (not to mention community side-eye) that is surely headed their way.
Do they not see that, or has power and ego gotten the better of them?
