Pay for Elected City Council Members?

Sonoma City Council members will discuss at their meeting on Wednesday a compensation package that would elevate them from making no salary, as is now the case, to making $360 a month or more. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building, 126 First Street West, and will be carried live on SVTV Channel 27.
Under a staff proposal, each Sonoma city council member would be reimbursed for up to $200 per month for council-related expenses and be paid a salary of $300 per month plus $30 for each Redevelopment meeting, the amount authorized under state law for cities with a population of less than 35,000.
City council members, though presently not paid, are already eligible for city paid health and dental insurance. The additional annual cost to the city for business-related reimbursements would be up to $12,000, according to city officials. The annual amount for salaries would be $18,000.
If approved by the council, the compensation package would go into effect in December 2008. Last February the council at a workshop on city priorities identified “business expense reimbursement and council pay as high priority matters to address in FY (fiscal year) 2008,” according to a staff report. The report says that the primary reason for paying city council members is “to create the opportunity for more residents of the city to be able to serve on city council by reducing the personal financial burden in such service.” Most California cities pay their council members, says the report. “Of 370 California cities participating in a 2001 League of California Cities survey, 326 or 88 percent provided pay for the city council members.”