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Claiming that it was an “accident,” the Brea City council has voted itself a $33,000 annual increase in compensation. At a time when everyone is having to try and make ends meet, the Brea City Council decided to dramatically increase the benefits of its “executives” and then feigned shock when told that the benefit increase also applied to them. This leaves two possibilities: 1) neither the City executives being rewarded with the significantly increased benefits nor the City Council bothered to read and understand the intent of the measure that they were voting on, or 2) they both full well knew that council members were voting raises for themselves and are now lying about it. Neither scenario says anything positive about politics in the City of Brea. Given that the incompetent or lying “executives” all claim to deserve their six figure salaries, this is another glaring example of public employee compensation run amuck.
Councilman Marty Simonoff has suggested giving back the benefit and has the tacit support of Mayor Roy Moore, but the two cannot get support from other Council members to put an item on the agenda to repeal the action. Brea’s greed and incompetence looks particularly bad at a time when other cities, such as nearby City of Orange, are pushing to eliminate all compensation for future council members.
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Scooped in my own backyard! Thanks for the story, Geoff. I’ll bet that Brett Murdock could be convinced to put the item on the agenda.
YES! Greg Diamond, if you know Brett Murdock please do convince him to join Simonoff and Moore in getting this on the agenda. Three votes are needed and Murdock could be that third.
Born in Brea 50 years ago and graduate of BOHS. I try to stay connected.
Typical lying greedy politicians. They must think the public is realllllllllllllly stupid to buy their line of Bulls*it. But lets remember they cut the retirement benefits for all new employees then they vote themselves a pay raise.
The Watchdog column in the Saturday Oct. 8 Register focused on this story. Inside the paper there were three stories about local murders, including the conviction of a 15 year old who shot and killed a 17 year old. The shooter was actually 14 when the shooting occurred. I do not understand the time, energy and visibility given to a relativly small stipend that a City Council votes for itself when the paper almost daily reports of shootings, knifings and other crimes, often centered in Santa Ana, and these incidents do not produce a level of outrage and interest by the newspaper or others. Probing investigatory reporting to find out where these criminals got their values, what their parents have to say for themselves and how to reverse this reality is much more imporant to the survival of our community than the pay a City Council receives in my book.
You are not entirely wrong, but that thinking has resulted in a blank check for public government that is now overdrawn.
The illegal we deal with as illegal through the process we set up for addressing illegality. The greatest disdain and resentment are reserved for those self-serving actions, taking from the commonweal, that are legal. The process we have for dealing with lawful wrongfulness is — well, the likes of this.