Many cities, as they have grown and found that the job of running things to be more than a part time responsibility, have hired a City Manager.

If he wants the job, he should volunteer to eliminate the City Manager position and take his salary instead of the $18k.

The part-time mayor makes $18,000 a year? That's insane! The folks in West Jordan are being taken to the cleaners. They should be asking about the retirement rate councilmembers are currently getting. What ever happened to "public service"?

Looks like another politician looking for a career.

Dallas, Texas has a population of over a million people and uses the same council-manager form of government that West Jordan uses...not exactly the small farming community form of government the Mayor is trying to convince people currentlly exists.

To those who seem to know:

Mayors don't just run council meetings, they sit on a variety of civic/community boards dealing with transportation, healthcare, and others issues representing the city. Most PT mayors I know of are spending 30+ hours a week on city business. So in my mind, is a FT mayor worth $18,000? What quality of person can you get for 30+ hours per week for $18,000?

The article states that Mayor Newton is not running again so there is nothing in it for him so Newton would not be in office to collect the $50,000 salary. To me it seems he is only looking to make his city better.

As far as being taken to the cleaners, WJ's prior city manager was the highest paid city manager in the state of Utah.

I've looked at some of the strong mayor cities in SL County, notably Salt Lake City and Taylorsville City, and they seem to be faster at responding to citizen needs and drive pressing issues louder than a council-manager form of government.

"looks like another politician looking for a career"

"Dallas . . . uses the same council-manager form of government"

Wrong and wrong. The mayor said he is NOT running again either way-so he is not trying to create a job for himself.

And Dallas' mayor IS full time, so they don't use the same type of system West Jordan uses. Do you people even bother to think or fact-check before you post something?

A full time mayor for a city the size of West Jordon is very reasonable.

Asking your citizens to dish our more tax money to pay for a salary right now isn't brilant. Property taxes are going up to make up for the losses in revenue from the decline in home values. Can't this wait long enough to get out of this recession? $18k is a small amount of money even for a part time mayor but $50k at a time like this isn't the answer either. Where's that extra $32k going to come from... our already stretched to the max pockets.

Maybe they can just ask Obama to give them some. He doesn't seem to mind wasting money.

The Dallas mayor may be called "full-time" but does not run the city. He is more legislative than anything else with a salary of $60K per year while their city council members earn over $38K per year; The city manager is the chief executive in their government (and earns around $250K per year). And please don't pop off that city managers are over paid - the city manager has responsibility for over 13,000 employees and a budget of over 1 billion dollars. The form of government in West Jordan and Dallas are both Council-Manager forms of government. Maybe YOU should get your facts straight wrong (or do you even know the difference between council/manager, mayor/ council, etc.)

I did some research "WRONG" and it looks like Dallas is the same kind of government used in W. Jordan. Dallas' Mayor makes 60 thousand dallars per year. W. Jordan Mayor wants to have that position make about the same. Dallas has a population of 1.2 million people. W. Jordan has a population of maybe 100 thousand. I'm betting that Dallas has a budget of 10 times what W. Jordan has. Doesn't seem very reasonable to me.