"The motion failed but the issue is still alive."
So says Coun. Bryan Raiser after failing to convince his colleagues to his terms for a District of Squamish council members' pay review.
"As a taxpayer I'm furious that council isn't paid enough to do the required reading to make informed decisions," he said in a follow-up interview with The Chief.
"It's the most important position in the community and it's the lowest paid."
The current salary for a councillor is $17,243 a year while the mayor is paid $35,923.
A tie vote at the Tuesday Feb. 9 council meeting defeated Raiser's Feb. 2 motion to have staff appoint a citizens' committee consisting of labour, business and community representative to complete remuneration review by March 31.
Councillors Rob Kirkham, Corinne Lonsdale and Paul Lalli opposed, councillors Doug Race and Patricia Heintzman supported the motion, while Mayor Greg Gardner was absent.
Lonsdale said she opposed the motion on the grounds that it's "not fair" to staff, and that a pay review was already completed by staff showing Squamish's mayor's salary is in the 50 percentile of the provincial norm while councillors' salaries are in the 70 percentile.
"Depending on what that committee does at the end of the day, council may or may not be critical of staff. It's not a fair position to put staff in. If you want a citizens' committee, you can choose one," she said.
"And if we feel that we're underpaid and we feel that we should be getting whatever then there's absolutely nothing stopping any councillor from actually throwing a figure out there. Let's not play these games."
Raiser said he was not comfortable suggesting a specific figure, so a citizen's committee could make that assessment.
"I felt that it was a very fair motion and that everybody could get behind it because it was just to look at it, but they don't even want to look at it."
Staff presented a comparison of salaries to communities of similar population and operating budgets last October following a council direction that was spurred by a letter signed by numerous high profile members of the community, including Bob Fast, John Buchanan, Ueli Liechti, Tom Bruusgaard, BIA president Eric Armour and Chamber of Commerce second vice president Steve Drinkwater.
Drinkwater acknowledged the issue is "very, very sensitive," but said adequate compensation needs to be addressed to expand the diversity on council.
"I think it needs to be brought up again, and the local politicians not try to make points by opposing a motion like this just because they might happen to be financially comfortable," he said.
"We're a community that's growing very rapidly, that has a very large civically or politically active population or citizenry who put a lot of demand on our council members."
Raiser said he's convinced the motion would have passed had Gardner been present.
"We're in a community where the Mayor campaigned on significant increases," he said. "It ended up being a tie so it failed, because Greg was absent."
Gardner said his recollection of his 2008 campaign website includes comments that "it is our responsibility to review compensation for council," but can't say how he would've voted on Raiser's motion.
"I won't speculate on how I might have voted because I wasn't there for the debate."
Gardner acknowledged the issue is a sensitive once since it involves taxpayer dollars and "the primary motivation for running for political office, in my opinion, should not be compensation."
