Last night the Council voted 6-2 to cut the salary of the Mayor’s aide by $2,010 from $44,818 to $42,808. Yet let stand an $11,000.00 raise for the Data Analysis position by a 6-3 vote.

If you use the argument that the current Mayor’s aide was started at the same salary that was given to a 13 year employee and that the person filling it has already declared he is leaving in August so why start another new employee at a higher rate, than I can understand your logic.

But then how do you justify an $11,000 raise for an employee who has been here 2 years who already received one raise when he added some additional responsibility (In the private sector many of us pick up more work / responsibility with Zero increase) and this raise was actually hidden and not publicly known about until last night?

Why is it okay to give one person $11K while you take $2K from another?

At first glance you might assume councilors were getting a little political payback at the Mayor and in the cases of Elliot, Mercier and Kennedy I might buy that but Councilor’s Lorrey, Nuon and Mendonca are usually allies of the Mayor and have no political axe to grind.

So why do Lorrey, Nuon and Mendonca take a stand against $2,010 but all vote to give a guy an extra $11K and by the way why didn’t the Manager spell this out on the budget page?

If it is in fact a “different” grade level with different duties why wasn’t this highlighted instead of presenting it in a fashion that if you were like me and watching from home, you thought the Manager was trying to sneak one past the Council.

These two votes were head scratchers and left a bigger question. Is the Mayor going to take the vote against his hand picked aide personal and will a few of those councilors feel his wrath and payback?

It seems to me the Mayor was pretty upset and annoyed with several of his fellow councilors (as was the Manager who on WCAP this morning stated politics always plays a role and those that say they are a fiscal focused councilor are usually the ones who do the most damage in a city or town because they don’t look at the big picture).

It appears any worry I had about the budget being quickly passed isn’t a concern. I look for more tension and heated discussions and then the bigger question is how is the council going to function moving forward?

My last head scratcher was I found it odd that 1 councilor would request rescheduling a posted meeting simple because it was more convenient for him and the rest of the council went along with it.

Councilor Mendonca asked for Thursday’s meeting to be moved from 5:00 to 6:00 so he could be there for the full meeting. While I understand that he works, so do most other Councilors and if last night was any indication 4 hours isn’t going to get this budget approved and delaying it 1 hour for your personal convenience at the expense of your fellow councilors and dept. heads seems uncalled for and unfair to the rest yet his fellow councilors went along with it.

What ever happened to ” The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few or the One?”