A Big Part of the Problem with our City Government

In the past several months, I have spent a great deal of time decrying bad decisions by the mayor and city commission. Many people in town have also been up in arms about alleged conflicts of interest made by certain of the incumbents, and potential conflicts of interest by some of the candidates.

I will not go into those details. However, I think that we are inviting conflicts of interest by expecting our municipal leaders to donate their time. A professional city commission and mayor should be paid for their time. Expecting these leaders to work long hours for our benefit and not pay them just encourages amateur-hour in our city commission.

Cascade County commissioners make $52,000 per year. If anything, that amount is low for the work we expect our municipal leaders to do. However, extending even that amount to each of our commissioners (including the mayor) would go a long ways toward ensuring that our leaders are professional, informed and qualified.