THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120490
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 68 lines
With little public comment, City Council members and Mayor William E. Ward gave themselves $10,000 raises Tuesday night.
The vote was 5-4 for the hikes, which are the first since 1986 for the council and mayor.
The raises, 77 percent for council members and 67 percent for the mayor, are the largest ever for elected officials in the city.
Mayor Ward, Vice Mayor Robert T. Nance Jr., and Councilmen W. Joe Newman, John W. Butt and Peter P. Duda Jr. voted for the increases. Councilmen John M. de Triquet, John E. Allen, Alan P. Krasnoff and Dwight M. Parker voted against. Nance and Allen will be leaving the council next month.
Only de Triquet spoke out against the increases.
``Given the current financial situation of this city,'' he said, ``I do not see this as a critical expenditure.''
Fourteen-year Councilman Butt and Ward were the only members of the council to speak in favor of the increases.
``I'm not here to make money,'' said Butt. ``It's not a money-making facility.''
Council members' annual salaries will rise from $13,000 to $23,000 as of July 1. Mayor Ward's pay will increase from $15,000 to $25,000 a year.
Those pay levels are the most allowed by the state for a city of Chesapeake's size. The General Assembly recently increased the maximum.
The council last gave itself a raise in 1986. Tuesday's increases are equivalent to them having given themselves about 6 percent raises each year over that time for council members and 5.7 percent raises for the mayor.
Norfolk's City Council has also increased its pay. After July 1, the Norfolk mayor's salary will increase from $20,000 to $25,000 while City Council members' salaries will increase from $18,000 to $23,000 annually.
In Suffolk, the pending operating budget proposes $10,000 raises for both Mayor S. Chris Jones and the City Council, according to the city's finance director. That would double Jones' salary and more than double those of council members, who now make $8,000 a year.
Portsmouth and Virginia Beach mayors and councils have not discussed increasing their salaries, officials in those cities said.
Three Chesapeake residents chastised the council for the increases. Local council critic T.J. ``Cowboy'' Carawan, speaking for the first time in more than a year after a debilitating traffic accident, asked the council how they could justify the increases. ``This country's gone to hell because of people like you,'' he said.
Self-proclaimed ``council-watcher'' Carl Burns asked the body: ``Where are your evaluations?''
``Just because the state legislature says you can have it doesn't mean you should take it.''
In other council business, the City Council met with Durwood Curling, head of the Southeastern Public Service Authority, to discuss a recent increase in fees for recycling services.
The council purposely kept money for the increase out of the recently passed operating budget until members could discuss the increase with Curling.
Under the proposed plan, Chesapeake's payments to SPSA would rise from $294,942 to $321,740.
Mayor Ward said the council would be asked in coming weeks to amend the operating budget to include the increase. It is unlikely, Ward and Curling said, that Chesapeake would drop out of the curbside recycling program as did Virginia Beach. ILLUSTRATION: Council critic T.J. "Cowboy" Carawan was one of three
citizens to speak out against the raise.
Profile of Carawan/E1
KEYWORDS: SALARIES CHESAPEAKE CITY COUNCIL by CNB