Escondido: Do Your Homework on the Portland Beavers

ESCONDIDO City Manager: $234,800 (includes car allowance $9,000) Assistant City Manager: $185,400 (includes car allowance $5,400) City Attorney: base salary $234,800 (includes car allowance $9,000) Mayor: maximum base salary $55,119; (includes car allowance $9,000 City Council members: maximum base salary $27,063 (includes car allowance $9,000) For more info...http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty… (What is "maximum base salary"? Isn't that an oxymoron? Like "jumbo shrimp"? It sounds like you can't pay any less but you can't pay any more. It's public, right? So what exactly is the salary amount for public employees?) In a city of 145,000 people, let me just spell that out...One Hundred Forty five thousand, the City Manager makes ohhh roughly what.. 10 times what a new City council member does? Really? I'm sickened. That means if you aren't independently wealthy when you take office, you must also hold a full time job to support your family. So tell, me, really, how much time can they really devote to the job and how effective do you think a city council member really can be? (For the record The Median Income in Escondido, CA is around 30K to 50K.) In a city where the police have had to resort to trolling retail parking lots looking to ticket minor parking violations, expired tags and broken tail lights in order to increase city income, it is actually planning to spend 50 to 150 million dollars on a BALL PARK? Here? Everyone must know, by now, that Building a Ball Park with Public Funds is one of the oldest private money making scams on record. And if you didn't know that fact, you've been living under a rock! (DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Google it for the facts!) I am outraged in so many ways. Not only that our City Manager of a measly 145 thousand people is compensated $240,000 dollars a year for his decision to even entertain such a appalling idea as that one, but that the Escondido City Council members are not even paid a living wage for their service. This city that I love, is being looted and, as usual, right under our noses. I for one am ashamed that only recently have I discovered that fact. Mr. Bauder, Who really has the authority to make a decision to bankrupt the city of Escondido? Is it the City Manager?, or City Council? Who did we give that power to? Once again, I am ashamed that I have to ask such a question. I thank you, Mr. Bauder, for your information and your talented writing skills. I have found your comments to be enlightening and I am totally in agreement.
— September 30, 2010 10:41 p.m.