Quote:
Originally Posted by curnhalio
They do so much behind the scenes that we never see. I mean people call their councillor if they see a trash can overflowing in a park for goodness sake. They deal with a lot of inanity from their constituents which leads to a lot of the inanity we see from meetings. $78,000 is a decent salary, especially considering they can write off a lot of expenses, but I'm with portapetey on this one. No thanks.
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Yep. I think you could be a bad councillor and not do much work aside from elections and gladhanding but it would be hard to be a good councillor and reconcile those things with making a meaningful positive difference. A really good councillor is able to communicate effectively with constituents, basically educating them a lot of the time, make hard decisions, and still get elected.
I've always thought that it's kind of a weird job, and that it doesn't select for the kind of people who can actually make good decisions. The job isn't going to appeal to many people with strong careers for example. Halifax politicians often used to be prominent businessmen, doctors, lawyers, etc., but you don't see as much of that these days. The job of councillor used to actually be part time so it was open to more people. It's a bit counterintuitive but I think it's often more democratic to have better-paying elected positions with a lighter workload. Otherwise you just get career politicians and the quality scales down with the pay grade.