Council compensation
Dear editor, Thursday’s Taylor City Council meeting was both disappointing and embarrassing.
On the one hand we have the people who came out to speak in opposition to a proposed increase in the council’s compensation (or honorarium). On the other, we have the actual vote the council took.
I served on the compensation committee. After the issue went off the rails in July, when our chair reported our recommendation, I decided to speak in defense of our work — essentially in opposition to the ordinance as presented.
Many of those who spoke in opposition used the opportunity to make vicious, personal attacks on sitting council members. Every time a speaker “scored a hit,” people in the council chamber could hear the overflow crowd whoop and cheer.
The longer I sat there, the more embarrassed and disgusted I became. It was disrespectful and unbecoming.
Some kept their remarks civil — proving that there IS such a thing as civil political discourse — but too many people ranted at the council and took unnecessarily personal shots at individual members. I actually began to feel dirty for being in the same room with the hatefulness.
That said, I was stunned that the council voted 3-2 to approve a compensation package that eclipsed those of some larger cities in the area, with no explanation of why they voted the way they did. That they voted to make this compensation effective with the beginning of the fiscal year, Oct. 1, rather than waiting until each office was re-elected is inappropriate, and I said this in my remarks.
I also believe that the cavalier way this was accomplished has forever changed the political discourse in this community, and not in a good way.
Folks, very few of you behaved particularly well. Richard Stone Taylor, TX
