#ncga: Gettin’ PAID in Hendersonville
SOME of the honorables on Jones Street are pushing through changes to Hendersonville’s charter:
Got that? “The mayor AND council members shall receive for their services such salaries as the City Council shall determine , from time to time, in acordance with the applicable general laws of this State.”
No set rates. Nothing like the specifics set out for legislators’s per diem payments. The council and the mayor get to decide what they’re going to get paid. How would you 
like a gig like that? You decide what you’re going to get paid — and the money comes out of somebody else’s wallet.
Let’s look at what they’ve done in nearby Asheville. The mayor gets $24,987 per year in salary and expense reimbursement. The vice-mayor gets $20,071 in salary and expense reimbursement per year. The remaining council members get $18,281 in salary and expense reimbursements.
Who is behind this legislation? Local Republicans Chuck McGrady and Chris Whitmire are the primary sponsors. But curiously, there are three Democrats from nowhere near Hendersonville co-sponsoring the bill: Elmer Floyd, George Graham, and Howard Hunter.
Now, WHY would those three be so interested in a local bill for Hendersonville? *SNIFF, SNIFF. Is that a backroom horse trade I smell?*
Chuck McGrady? He is the strongest progressive we have slipped into the GOP caucus. A real champion of our hard core environmentalist movement. A real champion of President Obama’s green energy agenda. He has even been a national leader of one of our main national hard core environmentalist organizations.
Anything Chuck McGrady is for just has be to totally progressive.
Very telling that the clause on salary increases or reductions not taking effect within current term has been stricken. Wonder how that might benefit the sitting council members?