Oaktown's Mayor Doesn't Take Paycut

Isn't that a hilarious headline I just posted! Of course he didn't.

Bay Area politics has always been pretty crooked. Dellums is a crook, as was the Mayor For Life, Willie Brown. Some of you on the East Coast may call "Mayor for Life" Mr. Marion 'Bitch Set Me Up' Barry.

Willie Brown dressed nice, at least. The problem was that he used TAX PAYER money! HA HA HA HA HA... still he was elected to the California State House of Representatives a gazillion times and Mayor of San Francisco at least 3 times.

The funny thing about the story below is that the Oaktown Mayor SAID he was going to not take his yearly pay increase ($18K or so), but then he did because he had 'unexpected' costs due to a death in the family. The crazy thing is that he makes $180K and Gavin Newsom makes $209K. Where can I sign up to be Mayor???

Anyway, happy Cinco De Mayo! But if you're in Arizona you better not be outside celebrating and if you are you better have your passaporta!


Here's the full story:

Oakland mayor breaks promise to take pay cut

Despite his pledge last year to join Oakland city workers being forced to take a 10 percent pay cut, Mayor Ron Dellums has never stopped collecting his full $183,000-a-year salary.

When the City Council suggested last June that Dellums take a pay reduction and cut his staff to help Oakland balance its budget, the mayor's public stance was that he was on board. "I am in no way interested in a fight at a time of significant economic despair and economic problems," he said. "This is a time we need to close ranks."

It turns out, however, that closing ranks didn't mean taking less money.

Dellums' spokesman, Paul Rose, declined on Thursday to say why the mayor didn't forgo $18,300 in pay this past year. A statement issued by Dellums' office said only that "changed family circumstances following the death of a close family member made it (taking the pay cut) impossible."

Rose said he did not know whether the statement referred to the August 2008 death of Willa Dellums, the mayor's mother, whose Oakland home Dellums is now trying to sell to help pay off looming debts. Dellums' father-in-law also died in November.

Dellums and his wife, Cynthia, owe the Internal Revenue Service more than $252,000 in back taxes and penalties.

The mayor came under fire from critics soon after he was elected when the City Council granted his request for a $68,000 raise - money Dellums said he needed after giving up a lucrative lobbying job in Washington.

Dellums, who served 27 years in the House and two years on active duty in the Marines, also collects a government pension that tax experts estimate at well over $100,000 a year.

Virtually everybody working for the city was forced to take a pay cut last year - whether through a furlough or actual salary reduction, or both. However, City Attorney John Russo ruled that elected officials couldn't be ordered to comply.

City Council President Jane Brunner ticked off for us a list of those who had gone along with the cut. Three names were conspicuously absent - council members Larry Reid and Desley Brooks, and Russo.

"If you ask employees to take a 10 percent cut, as elected officials we all should be doing the same," Brunner said. "And I personally felt it this year."

Reid, noting that he took a 5 percent cut a year earlier, said his $73,000-a-year salary paled compared to what Brunner and some other colleagues make. He noted that they have second jobs or other sources of income.

"This is what I do full-time, because it takes doing this job full-time," Reid said.

Brooks announced last year that she wouldn't be taking the pay cut. She said the public was already getting more than its money's worth from her office.

"Because I handle a significant amount of the workload in my office, I have been able to return between $150,000 and $200,000 in salary savings to the general fund," she told us Thursday in an e-mail. "This amount by far exceeds the total reduction taken by all of the elected officials combined."

For his part, Russo said he had never promised to take a cut to his $207,000 pay. He said he already took more than a 15 percent hit a year earlier when he gave up his vacation and management and sick leaves - money, we should note, that is typically reserved for nonelected department heads and managers.

The revelation about Dellums and the other officials came at a particularly inopportune time for city officials trying to persuade police to accept cuts in their benefits.

It also looks bad when Oaklanders look across the bay to San Francisco - where Mayor Gavin Newsom has reduced his pay 15 percent, to $209,000 a year.