Vote on Pasadena Council Pay Raise Delayed

Voters in Pasadena will have to wait until June 1998 to cast their ballots on a pair of measures that would substantially raise pay for City Council members, whose compensation has remained at $50 a meeting since the 1960s.

The seven-member council decided not to place the pair of measures on April’s local election ballot after city officials warned that the cost of an election would be as much as $148,000.

A slim council majority chose instead to delay the measures until the statewide primaries next year, despite the objections of the League of Women Voters. League officials requested that a committee be formed to examine the pay issue before any decision is made.

Councilman William E. Thomson Jr. called the vote in 17 months “the absolutely wrong approach� and vowed to write the opposition argument on the ballot.

But others said it is time to move the measure along. “If we don’t do this, we will have some committee that will meet ad nauseam,� said Councilman William Crowfoot, who was among the 4-3 majority.

The first measure on the ballot will mirror one used for nearly 20 years in Los Angeles, where council members became the highest paid in the nation. It calls for a committee to review pay and recommend what it should be to the council.

The second measure calls for the 1968 pay rate to be adjusted for inflation to 1997 rates. That would result in council members getting $1,170.25 per month.