Since it’s a slow, holiday week, and it’s been too long since we had a poll up on the blog, what better time to unveil a new poll question? Completely unscientific, of course.
The City Council introduced a salary ordinance this month that would reduce the mayor’s salary from $65,000 to less than $21,000, a cut of 68 percent. City Council members are paid $8,043, with the Council President earning slightly more, at $9,676. Both are considered part-time positions.
Should the City Council reduce the mayor’s salary?
* Yes.
* Yes, but they should all be cut, including Council members.
* Not only cut, but salaries for all elected officials, and then some, should be cut.
* Times are tough, make cuts wherever you can.
* No; you get what you pay for; they should be paid something to attract worthy candidates.
* No.
Such a softball Poll. The true answer should be Pelissier getting a 68% reduction in his total salary.
Agreed. P. P. is paid two full time salaries ? Does he work 80 hrs a week? That should be investigated. He also is in the pension system now as well. People are suffering and this man is getting wealthy. Public service is not supposed to be about getting rich on the taxpayers. The Rahway City Council is a joke. The Mayor's salary was blown up by this same group over many years. Now they see the light?Why do they get health benefits for a part time job? That's costing us a lot more money then the mayor's position.
No. The council should've never RAISED the mayoral salary to that level and would be prudent to correct that through vote for the next mayor but this guy took a huge cut in pay to follow Kennedy. Morally, we taxpayers need to live with the councils screw up till the end of the term. Want to make it up to your taxpaying neighbors? There should be no benefits for council members and salaries for ALL city employees should be capped at slightly over 100K IN TOTAL considering any employment, city, county or state
Picked up a copy of the SALARY ORDINANCE there some HANDSOME wages for 1/1/12. These wages should of been frozen at the 7/1/11 rate. Stop percentage raises now. Times are tough, make cuts wherever, but the Mayor's $47,000 reduction is extreme.
Peter H. Pelissier was appointed to the RVSA in early 2007 as its representative, a position he held until recently while simultaneously earning six figures as the Municipal Business Administrator of the city serving at the direction of the Mayor overseeing the operations of the local government. Pelissier had worked for the City of Rahway prior from 1990 to 2002 than he had gone into retirement briefly. During his retirement he worked for the city as a consultant in the capacity of Executive Director for the Rahway Redevelopment Agency. Interestingly during his retirement and as the Exec Dir. Of the Redevelopment Agency he was living in of all places, the State of Montana. At one point Pelissier is said to have been collecting his pension, a consulting fee from the city and a salary as well. According to 2007 newspaper reports this prompted state officials to order that he pay back over $300,000 in pension funds.
You should check your facts. I believe the paper said he was totally cleared and did not have to pay anything back. I bet Mark could find out!
Anonymous (#4) history of P.P. leaves out the short stint in Morristown as B.A. Would like to know what influenced him to return to Rahway. 🙂
While the salary of the mayor was probably too high (as is that of the BA/RD), that kind of major change should be done at the end of a mayor's term, not in the middle. This makes it too easy for a council to punish a mayor for dissent.Unfortunately it is hard to feel too sympathetic for any of the characters in this continuing drama. Hopefully the citizenry will take notice, and be inspired to make corrections at the polls.
excellent point chris d. is there any way of finding out who is behind this ? is it a handful of them or is it the entire city council ? i would not vote for anybody who is involved with this.
Rahway Resident:To answer your poll question Mark, I would choose "Yes, but they should all be cut, including Council members."A I agree that a part time position should be more on par with other part time elected positions like the council person's. However, I also think that if they are going to suggest a cut they be willing to do the same otherwise this is completely partisan and is nothing more than retribution, not prudent fiscal policy motivating such change. Further while I would normally agree with comments from Chris D. that any change should take place for the next term and not be made in the middle of this term, considering the economy as it is right now, assuming all publicly ELECTED officials take a pay cut then by all means do it now.I only hope that all of this business makes the public more aware come elections time, because as one commentator said this didn't happen overnight, this same council who was in office with Jim Kennedy helped raise it to the lofty levels it was at in the first place.
Are you people as crazy as the Council Members? NO!! The Mayor's salary should not be cut! This ord. gives 20+ mgmt. employees a 2-4%+ raise on top of the 7/11 raises. The reduction is purely personal to harass. What has the Mayor "gotten too close to" by asking questions? Looks like someone has something to hide!! Some individuals(SS, PP) are getting desperate and nervous, making fools of themselves and maybe acting illegally. (Immorrally at least!) THIS ALL MUST BE STOPPED!! NO ORDINANCE, NO REDUCTION, NO RAISES. The Council, etc. are mental, impeach them!
The Mayors salary should absolutely be reduced. He ran for mayor because he wanted a job, in order to hire his wife, son in law and never wanted to serve the community. As Freeholder he begged Kennedy to hire his wife at the County then when she got into trouble he again begged Kennedy to get her hired at the UCUA. How many of you can get your wife hired as Proctor did. What has he done for the City? Can someone name one single policy or cost saving plan? He never returns his calls, go ahead and try him at work, good luck. Congrats to the Council, reduce his salary!!
This last anonymous makes it sound like Proctor invented nepotism when in fact, it's been going on in Rahway for the past several decades under Kennedy's administration. Just connect all the dots between the BA, the council and everyone else holding down a City position and you will find a whole lot more strings attached to the BA and Kennedy…It is obvious that the pay cut to the Mayor's salary alone was pay back for him trying to have some overpaid employees rightfully have to account for their time. I think every Rahway employee's salary should come up for review and deep cuts should be employed – especially to those grossly overpaid employees who are not delivering Rahway's overburdened tax payers anything worth while for their boated salary.
The Mayor's salary is way out of line in comparison with other N.J. communities. Summit, Westfield and others in Union County do not pay anything. What the Council needs to do is to hire a consultant to evaluate the salaries of all employees and make adjustments according to the laws and rules of civil service.The 20+ management employees as mentioned above should not be singled out from the contractual employees such as police and fire recieving salaries in excess of 100k with all the extras. The Council should eliminate raises for all Directors and themselves.
yes – hire a highly paid consultant. Perhaps that consultant should be Proctor's wife.
THEY SHOULD ALL RESIGNED… AND LET GOVERNING BODY BE VOLNTEER
absolutely NOT..this isn't the 1950's, we need a full time mayor with a full time salary; one who knows budgeting, respect, honesty, and diplomacy. Let it be volunteer–WHO is going to have the time to do what needs to be done to govern a growing city and take on all that responsibility, ridicule (because no one can please everyone) all for a ''gee thanks for your time''…get over it. Counsel should also be paid. You want a volunteer fire department too? Funding and getting finances takes a lot of time, work and energy. Bureaucracy needs full time attention, not some volunteer who can't devote his or her time to the tasks needing to be done. Go live in a commune if that's the kind of government you want (no judgement just saying)… I have faith in this city, I will never give up hope that it will be the city I have envisioned since I came here in the 80s. I've lived and had a business here, unfortunately I had to move, it doesn't mean I still don't have my heart and soul in this town. I hope to return when things get better. No, no salary cuts from the people who dedicate their time, take abuse, and are serving our city to the best of their ability, they deserve compensation. As for whom has gotten what over the years, it's done and over, right or wrong–it's done..move on, learn, but you can't penalize someone who has every right to take what is their fair due by law…change the law if you don't like it. Volunteer YOUR time to that change and make it happen. Peace and have a great holiday.
Council gives themselves a raise and lower the mayors salary . What a joke you don't see the big picture now with this raise it brings the council's salary just high enough now to be included in the pension system . I would have rather had an inexperienced councilman with a conscious than what we have now. I didn't vote for this. Do you citizens read ? You had choices last election. You know you don't have to vote the party line. you can pick and choose your candidates so if you don't like one you can pick another . Unfortunately both parties are dividing us. There are good people on both sides. Come on Rahway lets work together
Enough with anonymous posts. Will all these anonymous posters be at the next council meeting, when this comes up for a vote? Sure hope so. Hard to take comments seriously from some of the anonymous posts.I've always strived to keep the blog constructive in its criticism in general and avoid being the waste of time that the nj.com forums tend to be. Just a little pep talk to try to keep discussion at a higher level.
Mark York correct stand up and be counted. What this council is doing pathetic. The are mostly all under Kennedy old ways. Protor is shaking the tree and the rotting apples are starting to fall. As a last pitch effort the council is trying to break Procter down. He is the mayor. Like it or not.
Seriously, what's with all the anonymity? You're entitled to your opinions, no one's gonna bite. But really, I would like to know exactly what people think Jim Kennedy did that was so horrible to this town? I came to town in 1987. Opened a little bakery, invested my time, money, heart and soul; expanded and opened a coffeehouse and then cafe..I also bought a house. How exactly did the Kennedy administration negatively impact me? Yes, during construction and rebuilding business suffered and eventually I had to move; is that his fault? Hardly. It was due to the fact people don't want to be inconvenienced to drive and park. It's due to the fact that whatever is ''easier'' is what's done, and then when small businesses fail because you may have to go ''out of your way'' to support it, you blame it on the officials. When I moved here this town was a dump. The improvements have been wonderful. Look at the library (still don't understand WHY Union County College isn't occupying upstairs but lots of things don't make sense to me-it would attract young people into the town). Look at the new condo's, apartments, LIFE, people moving into the downtown. You think Hoboken happened over night? Of course this isn't Hoboken, there's no PATH directly into Manhattan every 15 minutes. It also doesn't have the property tax and parking nightmares of Hoboken (or sink holes by million dollar condos). If blame someone blame yourself for bitching from the sidelines like it's a football game, get off your butt, and DO something. Open a business, flip a house, volunteer at the Arts Center, become part of the community. Maybe some of you are, but on here you're ''anonymous" –show up at a council meeting, run for office, volunteer for The Taste of Spring, don't just sit behind a computer ranting, blaming and then think you've contributed anything just because you gave your opinion and took shots at easy targets: those people who take their time to run for office (of either party or parties) and then those who are elected. Get it?
Right on, Joe. Love your comments about getting out and doing something constructive.May I make one suggestion: Remember to hit return/enter a couple of times to create paragraphs, breaking up your text. That'll create a more pleasing-to-the eye appearance rather than one lengthy-looking box of words, which may discourage readers. Just a thought. Still love your comments – thanks!