Not on Torrance Measure TC – Daily Breeze

In July, the Torrance City Council voted to make an extensive update to the city charter.

“Much of Measure TC will allow Torrance to update outdated language and implement provisions aimed at good government reform, including lobbying disclosures, ethics training for city officials, updated transparency on how public funds are spent, and more,” reports Christy Hutchings is from the Southern California News Group.

Many of these provisions are quite understandable. For example, outdated language relating to “telegraph communications” will be removed from the charter. Technical improvements here and there.

But Measure TC’s list of provisions also includes a city council raise. The measure’s official argument, signed by the mayor and council members, cleverly phrases the increase as: “Limiting City Council members’ compensation to no more than the California minimum wage, which is currently $16 per hour.”

“Limiting Compensation” is doing a great job there. It almost looks like a fiscally conservative measure. But this obscures the fact that board members are currently paid monthly stipends of $100 per month and reimbursed expenses. After all, these are public servants who decided to run for city council with no hope of making money.

But the measure would give the council a raise in line with the minimum wage. Accordingly, their salary for a full-time council member would be $33,000. That’s a huge increase from $1,200.

This is a remarkable request from the council, given that they had just gone to voters, hat in hand, asking tax increase because the city had no money. Now that taxes have been raised, they are asking for some money for themselves from the government trough. This is absurd.

Unscrupulous council members poisoned the entire event with their greed. If they had the public interest in mind, they would have promulgated the charter update without raising wages.

Torrance voters shouldn’t let politicians get away with it. Vote no on Measure TC.