Last week's Eye Poll turned out to be somewhat of a surprise. The city council has been busy fighting with the mayor and has made some controversial moves lately like the 19th Century Street Car tax and the Councilor Protection Act. Even so, Eye On Albuquerque readers voted to give councilors a raise from approx $10,000 a year to almost $30,000 a year.
In our unscientific poll 46% voted to raise the compensation for councilors to 33% of the mayor's salary, 35% believed that the current compensation was adequate, 10% thought they were already paid too much, 6% believed they should receive more than $30,000 a year, and 3% didn't know. (See the full results here.)
We believe that despite our displeasure with a number of councilors, their job takes more effort than dropping in to city hall 3 Mondays a month to vote. It's really a full time job and compensation should reflect both the expectations of constituents and importance of the office.
This week we're taking a look at taxpayer financing of municipal elections. As you may have guessed the Albuquerque Open and Ethical Elections ordinance is one of our pet peeves. We think it's madness to give taxpayer money to candidates to run for office. In New Mexico we've already got a problem with elected officials feathering their own nests with taxpayer money; we don't need the unelected getting in on the act too.
This week it's your turn to tell us your opinion by voting in the Eye Poll. Don't forget to vote!
4 comments:
I have first hand knowledge of how this public financing works. One person with a lot of money goes around getting voters to sign the reciepts saying they do not have to give the 5 dollars, it will be taken care of. The person signs the reciept and the person requesting the signature supplies the money. This effectively allows the person to contribute above the approved single donar contribution and allows for contributing public financing. This does happen. It is a scam.
We will continue to have government by the wealthy for the wealthy until all citizens have an equal opportunity to run for office.
first comment, can you explain that better...me confused
To third comment- the new public financing rules state that a voter in the candidates district can donate 5$ to the candidate and sign a form saying that they gave the 5 $ to the campaign by a certain date. If they get a certain # of donations they qualify for the public financing monies. Then they go out and get the signatures they need to get on the ballot with 30,000$ of taxpayer money.
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