Eight of nine Seattle City Council members voted Monday to hire an additional aide for each Councilor. That makes four aides to serve the voters! The increase was supposedly because the new system makes seven Councilor into DISTRICT councilors. So, supposedly the Districts will now be better served?
Assuming a salary of $70,000 plus benefits and administrative costs, these aides are going to cost $900,000, I wonder if the extra aides would have prevented City Council from the Pronto bailout decision? That was $1,500,000 to take over these overly heavy bikes in a city where the hills and rain make rental bikes an iffy proportion. On the other hand a Pronto bile would be nice in front of my house in case I want t use one to go to Broadway where there is no parking.
I could call my City Councilor to get a bike. The Aide might help because my Councilor is too busy. In my District, District 3, our Councilor, Kshama Sawant thinks she is running a national political party. Sawant never shows up to talk with her constituents and has done nada to work with neighborhoods here. Once I called a predecessor of Kshama to report breakins in our car. I was reprimanded for thinking the Councilor was a ward healer. Surely, Sawant is not a ward healer.
At large Council member Tim Burgess opposed the bill. He gets an Aide he does not need.