Setting own pay is a bad idea for County Council

The virtue of a part-time council is that its members will come from different walks of life, presumably holding down full-time jobs elsewhere. The part-time nature of the job (the current salary is $30,000 per year) assures they will remain close to the people they serve. Their decisions will come with at least a bit of those people in mind, to balance the other interests tugging at their sleeves.

The plan may well offer a form of political suicide. Who would be the first to double his or her salary and then run for re-election? But if it caught on, the office would be on the gradual road to a full-time position although, as Horiuchi notes, that would require approval by voters. A highly paid part-time office would be much the same as full time, however.

The man who once said council members wouldn't have enough to do can now list the many duties of the office. Horiuchi has spent eight years as an elected official under each form of government.

He was right about one thing all those years ago. Governments do indeed have a tendency to expand to fit the time and budget allotted. But that's not an argument for allowing County Council members to dramatically increase their own pay.

Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret News edito?rial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com. Visit his blog at www.deseretnews.com/blogs.