Dear Editor,
[RE: Maple Ridge city council considers pay hike for incoming council, April 7, www.mapleridgenews.com]
In regards to the recent article about City councillors ponder pay hike, there was some key information left out of the article, which I believe is important to have when council is pondering these increases.
The numbers that were quoted in the article did not reflect all of the taxpayer funded monies that council receives for attendance and participation in outside Maple Ridge meetings and committees like Metro Vancouver for example.
Information can be found on the Metro Vancouver website that show the total dollars and expenses paid to all Metro Vancouver committee participants, including Maple Ridge council members.
For example, in 2024, numbers show that Maple Ridge councillors received a total of $68,000 dollars in renumeration from Metro Vancouver for attendance at committee meetings, with one council member alone receiving $38,500 of the total plus $56,000 in expenses.
The question is, should councillors representing their municipality receive compensation for attending meetings at Metro Vancouver, or other taxpayer funded organizations, that their residents are already compensating them for?
While fair compensation for councillors is a discussion that should be had, and for the record I support Councillors [Sunny] Schiller and [Judy] Dueck’s comments in the article, I think it is important that full discussion and transparency should be made where all the information related to taxpayer compensation is included.
One council member who responded to my inquiry regarding this said it would take several months of discussion to debate and develop what a good policy on this should look like.
To that I say you need not look further than the City of Vancouver website.
Just do a Google search of the City of Vancouver’s website and type in “Strengthening Public Trust and Transparency Through Full Disclosure of Total Council Compensation” and see the motion paper brought forward by the mayor of Vancouver, that was unanimously supported by Vancouver council and is now in place.
They believed that this information was important for their residents to know, shouldn’t we as well?
The work has already been done.
Now all that is needed is the will.
Dennis Kinsey, Maple Ridge
Editor’s Note: Council voted this past week not to give the incoming council a pay raise, beyond the automatic annual cost-of-living adjustment, which is 2.1 per cent effective next week.