Get your stories straight fellas - Elk Grove City Council members Robles, Suen offer conflicting justification for their 300 percent pay raise
Both city council members offered obtuse reasoning for the huge increase in salary
If there was a silver lining to the Elk Grove City Council's decision to grant themselves a 300 percent pay increase, it was that, for once, the mayor and council members didn't violate the Ralph Brown California Open Meetings Act.
Or so it would seem, given the conflicting justifications for the massive pay increase offered by council members Sergio Robles and Darren Suen during deliberations. While both men's comments were obtuse, Robles said it was needed to help future council members who might be single parents pay their bills, while Suen said the salary isn't meant to replace or supplement their full-time jobs.
Even though the massive increase will start in December, Robles insisted the salary increase was for future members who might have difficulty paying bills.
"It's about the next person of color, it's about the next single mom, it's about the next single father, who will be one step away from losin' their job, and. who through this can they be able to afford paying rent or being able to provide for food or insurance, or what have you," Robles said.
While Robles framed the pay increase as an equity issue and the increased salary as a mechanism to help officeholders avoid eviction, Suen took the opposite approach. As the longest-tenured current council member, Suen acknowledged that this was not a position you seek as a replacement or supplemental income like Robles suggested.
"No one is making a living off of this, the entire maximum, you're still below the extremely low income in terms of living wages," he said. "None of us here rely on this; expect to rely on this as our form source of income."
He added, "No one is doing it for the money, and two, this is not something that you are going to go out and get rich off of."
As has been repeatedly revealed by their orchestrated talking points during other city council meetings conducted by Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen and, more explicitly, reactions to unscripted deliberations, a pattern of the mayor and city council members holding extrajudicial meetings has become apparent. With only Councilmember Kevin Spease opposing the hike while the other four slobbered like dogs at the prospect of fattening their wallets, there was no orchestration of reasoning, valid or not, needed for this hearing.
