Jerry Roberts
By Jerry Roberts of Newsmakers
In a video interview with Newsmakers, Santa Barbara City Councilmember Kristen Sneddon said that with a budget “disaster” looming, she supports temporary pay reductions for high-salaried City Hall employees as a matter of shared sacrifice.
Sneddon took note of an online change.org petition now circulating, which references the recent layoffs of several hundred hourly city workers in demanding 30 percent cuts for the 10 top-salaried employees in city government. She said she is uncertain that specific figure is correct, but agrees with the general notion, amid the coronavirus pandemic and the recession it has triggered.
“I don’t know where the 30 percent came from, but yeah….we’ve got to share the pain,” she said.
In a wide-ranging conversation about other issues and controversies, Sneddon also:
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Acknowledged as “a fair criticism” concerns about City Hall’s slow and sputtering approach to strategic economic planning, while also expressing hope that newly-hired Economic Development Director Jason Harris will jump start change and “a new paradigm,” as Santa Barbara seeks to repair the damage inflicted by the pandemic.
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Indicated that she favors even more stringent social distancing and public health protection measures than those the city now uses, including tighter limits on hiking trails, a more “unified, consistent” policy for grocery stores thats protect both shoppers and employees, and more widespread use of masks: “My belief is everybody should be wearing a mask when out.”
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Expressed concern about a recent “uptick in petty crimes (and) violent crimes,” saying because of the economic shutdown, “tension is high and people are a little bit desperate.”
An environmental geology professor at City College, Kristen also said she is spending half her life on Zoom these days, with classes being taught and taken online. She recalled with a laugh that she fell backwards off her chair during a recent virtual meeting, and seemed hurt that no one noticed she was gone.
Watch the whole interview by clicking on the link above. The podcast version is here.
hmmm well the pay for Council and Mayor is nothing extravagant, so a 30% pay cut is nothing more than symbolic and a PR move.
Cut the top 10 salaried City employees pay 30%. I’m number 11. Mubwahaha….I’ll be the most-compensated employee ever, working double-secret overtime while phoning it in.
If Sneddon “supports” the petition, did she sign it? Or will she go the way the mayor does, and refuse to act because she has ” to work with these people”? When Councilmembers take their directives and recommendations from “staff”, we the people are then left out in the cold without the representation that we should be getting. Everyone that works for or represents the City is a member of the “team”, and team members are not supposed to show any negative influences that go against the team’s goals, whether that be higher salaries, easier jobs, more time off, better perks, new vehicles, etc. It is a team effort. Non-team citizens get to pay for it, but really have no control. Just ask anybody not on the team.
NOTREALLYDAVE: That is certainly so for the 1st District councilmember unless she happens to know you from her other job at Franklin School! The 4th District rep. sees her team as the DCC with her eyes clearly on being mayor – watch your back, Cathy! The new 2nd District one seems to see his team as the city as a whole, with a bit too much of his own ego. Also: the point of raising the salaries about 7? years ago was to pay properly for what should be a full-time job. Except for the mayor who gets paid a bit more, none of these treat the council as a full-time job.
Yes on Kristin –an honest sense of humor will get us through this. Let her keep her salary, and make sure she fills out a Worker’s Comp injury to Ego claim! Finally, a laugh amidst all this greed. We simply need virtual tourist trek now and virtual bar experiences. Love the idea I heard about working from a hotel instead of a very dangerous city cubical to get applications for planning and small home construction permits DONE! COVID- 2020 delays are also killers as are all kinds of licenses to be processed. Money is already or waiting for you in so many instances.
The real news from this interview is not her views on cutting salaries of public administrators, it’s what she said to Jerry on when she thought we should reopen the economy. Her answer was essentially gibberish. Interestingly, after doing everything she could to avoid a direct answer, she admitted it could be 3 or 4 weeks if we have far more tests than we do now. Then she told him that businesses would have to shift in what services they offer. In effect, they would have to reinvent themselves. Thank god we have a geology professor at SBCC lecturing business owners on how to mange their companies going forward.
But it is too bad we seem to have “businessmen” of dubious quality determining much of our national medical response.
I might sign for a temporary reduction for the top 9 but there is a huge drop off to number 10. Someone fell for the “top 10” simplicity and didn’t do much homework. Wouldn’t it be more equitable to reduce and a sliding scale based on salary above a certain norm?
Sure, but it’s pennies here. Agree that council member pay is negligible. Limit bureaucracy, which this is about. Wish this applied to federal government!!
Going on public records is not enough for you, Not Really Dave?