A deal is a deal……….
I’m Mike Fitzsimmons with commentary on 920-KXLY…….
Remember how pious she was?….Mary Verner appeared almost saintly. She offered a humble, knowing smile as she told us she understood that our city was struggling. She then made an astonishing noble gesture. Mayor Mary Verner would not accept the full $170-thousand salary the people are required to pay their mayor. Why she couldn’t in good conscience take all that money when the people were fighting just to make ends meet. She felt our pain. Last August, after a strong win in the primary election, I suppose Mary Verner fully expected to be re-elected to office. On election night last November her demeanor had changed markedly. She was a woman scorned.
It does not surprise me that three days before she left office, the former mayor asked for back pay to cover the pay raise that she had so publicly declined. In the general election Spokane voters informed Mary Verner that they had decided to go a different direction. She was not re-hired. It was a shock, I’m So now. it’s no more little Mary Sunshine. There’s an old admonition that says when someone tells you it isn’t the money, you can be certain….it’s the money. Verner unilaterally capped her annual pay at $100,000 for four-year term, but now she wants $140,000 which is the pay she voluntarily forfeited in her final two years in office. She also wants her retirement, (which starts immediately), to be paid at the rate of $24-hundred a year, which is based on the full $170-thousand salary she declined to receive. If based on the actual annual sum Verner was paid, Verner will receive a lifetime pension of $14-hundred.
The city budget did not anticipate that Verner would seek $140-thousand. That money is not in the budget. The former mayor knows that. She crafted that budget. The city doesn’t have the money to satisfy the former mayor’s change of heart. A deal is a deal. Nobody dragged Mary Verner kicking and screaming into that magnanimous forfeiture of salary a few years ago. It was all her idea and we are grateful for her generosity. The city reasonably relied on it and that ought to be the end of the matter. Sorry Madame Mayor, a deal is a deal.
With commentary on 920 – KXLY, I’m Mike Fitzsimmons
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