The pay raises of 2006 for Fresno's elected officials are close to being fully implemented.

The unanswered question: Will the controversy of 30 months ago renew itself now that the economy is struggling and the city's budget figures to be challenged in the new few years?

Let's review what happened in the summer of 2006.

In June 2006, the council directed City Attorney James Sanchez to draft an ordinance authorizing pay raises for the city's elected positions. Council members at the time were making $44,511 annually, the council president $49,680, the mayor $99,360.

The City Council hadn't had a raise in six years. The mayors salary hadn't changed since January 1997, when the city transitioned from a council-manager to a "strong mayor" form of government.

Salaries for elected officials authorized to tax the same people who voted them into office has been a sensitive topic in America since colonial days.

Fresno's municipal government is no exception, and over the years policies were designed to protect the conflicting interests of elected officials and the public. For example, elected officials were prohibited by the City Charter from giving themselves a raise in their current term. And the city's Civil Service Board was authorized by ordinance to review elected officials' salaries in even-numbered years and make non-binding recommendations on adjustments.

The board had recommended no raises in 2002 and 2004. It had yet to review the issue in 2006 when the council on July 18 tackled the proposed ordinance drafted by Sanchez's office.

Sanchez gave the council two nearly identical options, but the clear preference was this: a 46% raise for council members to $65,000 a year; a 41% raise for council president to $70,170; a 31% raise for mayor to $130,000.

Several factors influenced the debate on July 18, 2006.

Frustration was one. Council members were upset that their positions hadn't received even incremental raises in recent years, although the cost of living had risen steadily, their public duties had expanded, and the complexities of governing the state's sixth largest city had intensified.

"If you do your job, that's your life pretty much," said second-term Council Member Tom Boyajian, who would be termed out in six months. "... I didn't run for the money. I don't think anybody on this council does. But it becomes something that is important."

Good government was another factor.

A democracy gets what it pays for, council members said. Public service is noble, but it's only common sense that there's a direct connection between the quality, quantity and diversity of candidates for public office and the office's annual pay, they said.
After all, even office-holders and their families need to eat.

The issue, Boyajian said, is "the institution of City Council. I'd like to see it strong. I'd like to see it vibrant."

Temptation was yet another factor.

Operation Rezone, the nearly decade-long federal investigation into corruption at the city halls in Fresno and Clovis, wasn't mentioned by name. There was no need. The stench of that sordid affair, where one former council member traded his vote for a set of tires, lingered still.

An adequate salary won't eliminate greed in public offices, the council said, but it is a proven aid to honesty.

And, finally, there was anger -- with a Civil Service Board viewed as unduly frugal.

The system of board review of elected officials' salaries "is not working," Council Member Larry Westerlund said.

Actually, there was one other factor in the debate, unstated but powerful.

The economy was strong, so City Hall could afford the raises. The Dow Jones industrial average rose nearly 52 points that day to close at 10,799.23. McDonald's announced that the company's second-quarter earnings would top analysts' estimates. Experts said the national economy would grow at a 3% clip. The average house price in Fresno was nearly $290,000 and rising, even though realtors estimated that only 19% of Fresno area residents could afford a median-priced house.

The raises ($65,000; $70,170; $130,000) passed 4-1. Boyajian, Westerlund, Cynthia Sterling and Mike Dages voted yes. Brian Calhoun voted no. Jerry Duncan abstained. Henry T. Perea was absent. The council also stripped the Civil Service Board of any authority to review elected officials' raises.

But that wasn't the whole story.

No one mentioned it from the dais, but the council had actually approved raises that would be received by three sitting council members. Sterling, Dages and Perea were in their first terms. But they had already been re-elected to second terms when the July 18, 2006 vote took place. Voters in the June 2006 primary had sent them back to office.

City Attorney Sanchez said the three could vote. The City Charter prohibits an elected official from voting on a pay raise that would go into effect that same term, Sanchez said. It doesn't prohibit an elected official voting on a pay raise to go into effect when the elected official begins a new term.

The pay raise debate didn't end on July 18, 2006, but what followed was anti-climactic.

The Civil Service Board met and recommended 9% raises for council members and mayor.

Mayor Alan Autry vetoed the pay-raise ordinance. The council positions deserved a raise, Autry wrote in his veto message, but added that "I have serious concerns about the action to eliminate the third party review process .... We must be mindful of the public's perception, justifiably so, of any raise in salary that is proposed without third party analysis."

On Aug. 22, 2006, with little discussion, the City Council overrode Autry's veto, 7-0.

On the surface, only one chore remained -- waiting until time and elections implemented the raises for all eight elected positions.

The journey began in January 2007. Boyajian (old salary) was termed out, replaced by Blong Xiong (new salary). Sterling, Dages and Perea that month began their second terms, and their pay was bumped up to the new salaries.

On Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009, Autry, Calhoun and Duncan (old salaries) were termed out, replaced by Ashley Swearengin, Andreas Borgeas and Lee Brand (new salaries).

City Hall is currently wrestling with what to do about the salary of District 4's Paul Caprioglio.

Westerlund temporarily left the council last spring to serve in the military in Iraq. The council appointed Caprioglio to represent District 4 during Westerlund's absence. In June 2008, Westerlund was re-elected.

On Tuesday, the council reappointed Caprioglio. Westerlund is expected to return this spring.

Does Caprioglio get the higher salary of a second term, as Westerlund would if he had taken the oath of office on Tuesday? Or, is Caprioglio's term of service from the day Westerlund left the council to the day Westerlund returns to office, and therefore Caprioglio's salary remains as it was when he was sworn in last May -- $44,511?

City officials said they are researching the issue.

All of this would be of little or no interest if only history weren't so unpredictable.

But it is.

Swearengin and the new council in January 2009 face a dramatically different economic and political landscape than did Fresno's government in mid-2006. Today, America is in a deep recession. The stock markets are down by a third or more. Fresno's house prices have tumbled by a third or more. Joblessness is on the rise. Corporate earnings are dropping.

All this means Fresno City Hall, as does nearly every other government in America, faces a severe challenge: falling or stagnating revenues at the same time the public demands more services and lower taxes.

On the day before she took office, Swearengin acknowledged tough times are coming. The 2009-2010 budget could face an $11 million shortfall. Swearengin said no department is immune to possible cuts: "Everything is on the table."

And that means politics will settle things -- bare knuckle, no-holds-barred, emotional, impassioned politics deciding who works and who doesn't, whose services thrive and whose services die.

Leadership -- the kind that retains the consent of the governed even as the governed are asked to make painful sacrifices, the kind that leads by example -- is likely to carry the day.

And that leadership is to come from eight elected officials who are the financial beneficiaries of the City Council's actions in mid-2006.

Marina Magdaleno seemed to see all this coming on Aug. 22, 2006 when she addressed the council shortly before it overrode Autry's veto. Magdaleno was business representative for Stationary Engineers Local 39. The union represents city blue-collar employees such as garbage truck drivers and sewer workers.

Magdaleno said Fresno's elected officials deserve a raise, but suggested it be implemented over a period of years. This is how rank-and-file employees are treated, she said, so elected officials should treat themselves the same way.

"You really need to think about how you're giving yourselves these raises," Magdaleno said nearly 29 months ago. "If you stand here today and you give yourself the amount of money that your are proposing, then what are you telling the city employees and the community that you serve?"