The $90,000 -- or is it $100,000? -- question

Of all the issues County Commissioners and Commissioner candidates don't like talking about, elected official salaries have to top the list. Too bad, because folks at just about every public forum or interview understandably want to hear about it.

This has been unusually hot this cycle. Over the last couple of years the base salary for Commissioners has jumped from $66,000 to a little over $90,000, plus very generous benefits---all at a time when so many voters (more to the point, taxpayers) see their economic lives swirling down toward the drain. It's not hard to see what the anger is about.

There's lots to say on this issue, but the short version is this: if elected I plan to accept the $90,000+ and work as hard and smart as I can every day to earn it. Is it too much? That depends completely on what taxpayers get for their money. If the next commissioner spends most of his time looking over the shoulder of County Administrator Danny Jordan, nodding in approval, and sitting through routine meetings, then he's just doubling up on management. That's not worth much.

We don't need more management. We need more leadership, a collaborative kind of leadership that puts government, business and the non-profit civic sector to grab hold of challenges that everyday steady-as-we-go management alone won't solve. Which challenges? I lay those out at the campaign website. Here I just want to suggest that the constant question "is $90,000 too much?" misses the point, which is this : Too much for what? It's about five times too much to pay someone for just warming the chair. If we elect people with the practical intelligence, tenacity, creativity and gift for bringing people together to get this county economically sturdier and more self-reliant, the salary is a bargain. Which, of course, is how I hope people will tend to look back on my time in office, if given the privilege of getting there.

So I'm okay with $90,000, and charged up to earn it. What I'm not okay with is a proposal in the curent budget to hike the salary yet again this year to close to $100,000. At some point these raises rub the noses of struggling taxpayers straight into the mud. With this new proposal we've arrived at that point. Approving it would signal Commissioner cluelessness about Rogue Valley life that would just about take your breath away.

Anyone see this differently?