ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, May 21, 1996 TAG: 9605210093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
Admitting they had "goofed" by not discussing it in public, members of Roanoke City Council voted Monday to reconsider the pay raise they granted themselves May 13 after hashing out the amount behind closed doors.
The 6-0 vote by council doesn't necessarily undo the increase, which would go into effect July 1. But it means there will be public discussion of it and another vote at the next council meeting, June3.
"We goofed," said Councilman Jack Parrott, who brought the issue up at the end of council's afternoon meeting Monday. "We never should have considered that in executive session."
"We made a mistake," Vice Mayor William White said.
However, Parrott said he still believes a $1,000 raise for council members - to $14,000 - is justified, as is a $3,000 increase that would bring Mayor David Bowers' salary to $18,000.
The private discussion by council arose late on May 9 as part of another executive session.
After daylong budget deliberations in public, council passed a motion to go behind closed doors to discuss pay increases for six council-appointed officers such as the city manager, finance director and city clerk.
Virginia's public information act requires that council pass a motion for each item it will discuss privately, including adjustment of the salaries of "specific public officers." But council never publicly passed a motion to discuss its own salaries in the executive session, and it's unclear whether such a motion would have been legal had it passed.
During the discussions about the administrative salary increases, Parrott recalled, ``Somebody said, `Well, we're talking about salaries, do we want to talk about ours, too?''' He said he cannot remember who first brought it up.
"What we should have done was called [City Attorney] Wil Dibling at home and asked, `Can we do this?''' Councilwoman Linda Wyatt said. "But we didn't."
Dibling was not present because his pay raise was one of those being discussed in the executive session. He was present May 13 when council publicly passed the ordinances increasing pay for the mayor and council members.
The only dissenting vote at that time came from Councilman Mac McCadden, who said it was wrong for council to increase its own pay without notifying the public in advance.
Citing attorney-client privilege, Dibling on Monday declined to say whether council's meeting was illegal. Asked why he didn't advise council to withhold action on the ordinances, Dibling said he wasn't asked about it.
Asked whether council could meet on the issue at all in executive session, he replied, "I understand your question, but I'm not going to give you an answer."
After Monday's vote to reconsider, White said council was in unfamiliar territory during the executive session.
"It was something that we've never dealt with in the six years I've been here," he said.
Until this year, when the General Assembly raised the cap for local government officials' pay, the mayor and council members had been earning the state maximum.
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