07/19/03

Chagrin Falls- Village Council voted in an unusual 7:30 a.m. meeting yesterday to more than quadruple council salaries and double the mayor's.

Beginning in January, the mayor's salary will rise from $7,200 to $15,000, and council members' salaries will rise from $720 to $3,000, the minimum needed to participate in the pension system for state workers.

Mayor Lydia Champlin said council raised the salaries to make them comparable to the pay in surrounding suburbs.

Councilman Dwight Milko, chairman of the committee that recommended the higher salaries, said council compiled the 2004 wages of selected communities that pay officials. The average mayor's salary in those communities is $25,815, and the average council member's salary is $6,591.

The raises for Chagrin Falls officials follow a spate of pay hikes in neighboring suburbs, including Orange, Moreland Hills and Pepper Pike, where increases followed public debates and were enacted in the normal meeting process.

Under Ohio law, elected officials cannot raise salaries during their terms. The deadline for approving raises for council and the mayor in Chagrin Falls is tomorrow.

The community had "ample time" to learn about the raises, Milko said. His committee had a meeting July 10 when the public could talk. Notice of that meeting was posted two days earlier.

James Watterson, the sole council member to vote against the raises, said the money would be inconsequential and was probably deserved, especially for the mayor. But the rushed timing of the raises bothered him, he said.

"I'm sure it's not going to look good that we gave ourselves raises at 7:30 in the morning," he said after the meeting.

Chagrin Falls' council usually meets at night, though boards and commissions often meet during the day.

When the public is accustomed to regularly scheduled meetings, special meetings become "not truly public meetings," said Catherine Turcer, legislative director of Ohio Citizen Action, a statewide government watchdog group based in Columbus.

The council enacted the pay raises as "emergency" legislation, which takes effect immediately and prevents voters from blocking it at the polls. When legislation is passed without the emergency provision, voters can circulate petitions to put the legislation on the ballot.

Turcer found the emergency provision troubling.

"There was no reason for the hurry-up meeting, unless you wanted to take away the voters' right to rescind the decisions that you made," she said.

One resident, Patti DelVillan, attended yesterday's meeting. She had prepared remarks questioning the wisdom of the raises, because school taxes are set to rise and the national economy continues to sputter, she said. Council did not invite the public to speak, and the meeting ended without DelVillan's statement.

She said that council appeared to ram through the raises.

"The idealist in me wants to believe, no, they would never do that," she said. "But could they be that scheming? I don't know."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

mstolz@plaind.com, 216-999-4549