Wage Earners: Your Thoughts

A closing thought—what do you, fair reader, think about the annual release of the (top) city wage earners?  Should the list continue to be released?  Is it inflammatory?  Is it fair?

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Orders under suspension

The end of meeting orders:

• Rushton: What are the top 10 pages visited by the public over the past year?
• Petty: When are we going to confirm a date for the MBTA summit?  O’Brien says May 9 is likely, from 8:30-11:30 in the morning.  Tentative, but arrangements are being made.
• Petty: Sidewalk repair at 30 Barry Road…only noteworthy because Petty sits next to Joff Smith.  Smith and two family members live on the street.

Pass on Adult Entertainment

No discussion on the AE item.

9:51

The color of money

“We may have to look at a salary freeze, and take a breather for this year,” says Mayor Lukes, calling the top 250 salaries evidence that we pay “comfortable” salaries. Of course, the bottom 250 salaries in the city have not been requested by the council.

“How about a breather than you voted yourself a raise?” wonders Frank Raffa (rhetorically) from the back of the room.

“We’ve got to change our [adversarial] thinking around here,” says Lukes. She held hold the item under privilege to prevent it from being filed away into the circular file.

Now, Rushton has requested a report on all the municipal wage earners. (The Boston Herald has last year’s data on their site for a year; we do a similar piece semi-annually).

He also says a salary freeze is not a council decision; it’s also negotiating in bad faith, he says. “I’m not going to inflame [O'Brien's] negotiations based on a list of the top 250.”

Rushton and Eddy both profess that we’re getting a “good value.”

“I look at that list of 250…we’re getting what we’re paying for,” says Eddy.

And Petty has asked for a “blank” next to everyone’s name. Unfortunately, that’s illegal, as Lukes just pointed out. The info is public. (Anyone noticing a trend on public information here?)

Palmieri: “In order to make ends meet [in public safety], these [officers] are trying to work as hard as they have to for their family.”

“If a public safety official didn’t have to work an additional 25, 30 hours a week, they wouldn’t. They’re doing it for their families.”

Here’s the problem though: The city councilors are all defending city employees for working hard for their money as if a media/public horde were attacking that reality.  But the majority of vox populi complaints have nothing to do with individuals working a system hard…it’s the system that people complain about.

City Manager Michael O’Brien says that looking at the salaries in a vacuum isn’t fair.  “It doesn’t put things in perspective.”

“I believe this city receives a tremendous return.”

8:52, updated 8:57, 9:06, 9:18

Coleman wants Library open, now!

Bill Coleman who, in case you’re not on his email list, has sent a barrage of emails over the past week calling for the Public Library to be open on Mondays, has brought his case to City Council.

It would cost $375,000 for 20 Mondays, Coleman says.

And while councilors agree in concept, some seem to think that there are other more cost effective measures right now, such as the BookMobile.

Speaking of the BookMobile, Gary Rosen says that the city Barnes & Noble has agreed to donate a percentage of all proceeds on May 16 & May 17 to the program.

Now, this has quickly disintegrated into a major procedural issue…Rosen says library issues fall into his Health & Human Services committee; Mayor Lukes and Councilor Kate Toomey say it falls under the Education Committee.

Rosen says the library has fallen under committee’s jurisdiction since the committee restructuring this year, Mayor Lukes says it never should have been there to begin with.

“Do we have a manual yet?” asks Councilor Clancy.

8:31

Crosswalk Conundrum

City Councilors are asking police to crack down on motorists speeding through crosswalks with pedestrians in them.

“It is time the police crack down on the motorists,” says Councilor Michael Germain, who is calling for a citywide intersection/pedestrian needs review, of sorts.

8:06

Yes, we’re here…

…but the councilors are getting a full demonstration of a new piece of software designed to integrate data and make tracking “problem properties” more effective. It breaks down the so-called “silos of data,” says Councilor Haller.

It’s cool stuff, conceptually, and a data geek’s dream, but we’ll save you the play-by-play.

We do have one question on the database: Will it be publicly accessible?  The City Manager said no, but Councilor Rick Rushton touched on the issue, saying it would be fantastic if the information was available to the general population.

A good deal of the data that the city has assembled in the database is already technically public information, just at different levels of accessibility.  It would be a bold step if the city actually opened up the database for public use, rather than forcing people to cobble information together.

7:32, updated 7:52

Council Live Blog preview

A couple big items on the City Council agenda tonight.  But the one that will generate the most comment from the public is sure to be those top 250 salaries.

Like every year, a lot of that attention will be directed right at the police detail pay, some of which seems a bit high.  Take Police Sergeant Donald Larange, who led the department in detail pay with $61,993.63 last year.  At $40 per detail hour, that comes out to a little more than 29 hours a week BEYOND however many hours (40?) he is putting in at his $69,480 base salary.  Larange also brought in $17,712.39 in overtime pay and an additional $2,849.42 in court attendance pay.  Larange is just one of many though–25 police officers/officials in the top 250 paid employees brought in more than $40,000 in detail pay; another 35 brought in $20,000 or more in overtime.

The other big item tonight could be the adult entertainment zoning ordinance revision revision: residences will now be included in the buffer zones.