Sign up now to subscribe!
A Dead End Job No More? Spitzer Takes the Helm Grannis Pushing Comptroller Bid Now For the Count: How many kids are sleeping on our streets? Editorial: By the Numbers Faso's HQ Burgled Bloomberg' Political Contribution Investments Come Up Short First Spitzer Transition Team Meeting Set Up in the Air, Up in the Sky, It's the Mayor of New York? Fight for Billboard Business Billions Reaction To Bell Shooting Highlights Lingering Council Tensions State of the Unions: DC Election Set for January Harrison Eyes Fossella Rematch Fossella Retools for Life in Minority New Legislators, Great Expectations Lanza Moves from Super Minority into Powerful Majority The XX Factor Back in the District: Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell
The Year in Pictures Predictions for 2007 Imagemakers: Source Communications New York Young Republicans Look for Young Blood Mixing Progressive Politics, and Drinks In the Chair: Bill de Blasio Editorial: A New Yorker in the White House Higher Salaries, Lower Ethics and Public Opinion by City Council Member Tony Avella The View from Albany: The Member Item Dilemma by Alan Chartock New General, Same Battlefield by Robert Polner
The recent pay increase debate offered the City Council a golden opportunity to put an end to anti-good government practices within the body and initiate real reform, such as eliminating the “lulus” and prohibiting outside income. Unfortunately, the Council let the opportunity come and go without any reform.
Despite my ardent opposition to the pay increase, the Council overwhelmingly voted to raise salaries from the current $90,000/year to $112,500, retroactive to November 1st, 2006.
I believe that as elected officials we must set an example – providing for others first and foremost – not taking care of ourselves. The unethical action by the City Council has only worsened the public’s opinion of politicians.
Council members knew what the salary was when they, like I, ran for office. It should be up to the voters, the citizens of our City, to decide if we are doing a good enough job to warrant a pay increase.
Public service should not be about making money—if you want to make more money, go into the private sector. It should also be about leading by example. That is why I am refusing the pay increase and that is why for every year I have served in the Council I have refused the $8,000 lulu I am entitled to as Committee Chair of Zoning and Franchises.
We must continue to press for the good government reforms that I introduced during this process such as: prohibiting outside employment income for Council Members, thereby making the position full-time; eliminating the “lulu’s (stipends for additional work – such as Committee Chairs or leadership positions), which are simply a means by which the leadership controls the votes of its members; and ensuring that no future Council can vote itself a raise by requiring any raise to be effective only after the next election.
Although my efforts to initiate Council reforms during this debate and vote were unsuccessful, change must occur if this legislative body is ever to gain respectability.
Tony Avella (D) represents the 19th Council District, covering parts of Northern Queens.