Creative help needed dealing with Repub underhandedness! Urgent!

[redwitch]

Election day our Dem. candidate won highway superintendent position in a landslide victory over Republican incumbent. The very next day the town council met and voted that position a $2000 decrease in pay. Because he has not had experience :eyes:. The Republican supervisor and the Republican 5 member board. The only line item decrease in the 35 page budget. Unaanymously voted him a pay decrease. Words cannot express how I feel about this type of behavior. So now our Dem committee has to write letters, make phone calls and get the community all upset for the holidays. Grrr. Any thoughts?

[WillParkinson]

1. Are any of the others new?

If so then you should insist that they do the same thing for themselves. :-)

[redwitch]

no.

And the super got a 10% raise.

[babylonsister]

2. How can that even be legal? Had a rethug won, would their salary

have decreased? I wonder if the ACLU would be interested in hearing about this, or some other org. that might be willing and able to stomp on these thugs.

[redwitch]

5. Of course not, incumbent would be making last year's salary plus

cost of living increase. Bringing in the ACLU would be the kiss of death to our newly energized Dem committee. Heavy Repub area, in fact the whole county is. We are gradually winning some over but that would probably be a bad thing to do.

[babylonsister]

10. How would the local media handle this scandal, or would they? That

might be an approach. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, I hear.

[redwitch]

12. We will soon find out! Contacting local papers tomorrow.

I just hope we can get the guy his money back. He knew he would be making less money at this job than his current one when he decided to run, because he knew what the current guy was making. Or, is making. But now they have taken additional money AFTER the election. It really should not be allowed.

[Sparkly]

3. If nothing else, you could damage your local Repug. board with it.

LTTEs, likening them to Scrooge or Mr. Potter, comparing it to changing the terms after a deal was made, I don't know -- but if your Democrat won in a landslide, I'd think the voters would be none too happy about this shoddy treatment.

[angstlessk]

6. eggactly...pay for a haircut, get a new suit...a professional shoe shine

pay for a resume, and the cost to commute to the human resource office 50 times...get the job...THEN BE TOLD YOUR PAY IS LOWER THAN ADVERTISED...that to me is fraud!!!

[redwitch]

8. Fraud is indeed what it is. But it is apparently legal here.

Some laws are really bad laws.

[angstlessk]

21. hell lawmakers are the singly most corrupt people on earth

they make laws that if the rest of the country followed them we would be arrested!

[redwitch]

7. My LTTE will begin: The Lord loves a workin' man.

Apparently our Republican town board does not. Catchy, no? Thank you Navin R. Johnson!

[October]

15. Good ideas

Can you imagine being hired/elected, knowing what the salary is -- only to have it change? Unfair! Those LTTEs should include the word "partisan" a lot.

Good for you for fighting the fight.

[redwitch]

18. Thanks.

I hope we can fix this. I live in a small town and when things turn ugly everybody is upset.

[aquart]

17. I would start with:

Is a Democrat really worth less than a Republican?

As you may know, our Republican-majority council celebrated the Democratic win for....(insert office won)..by reducing the salary for that office by $2,000 a year.

Here's what the Republicans on our council have done for us: (and I'd list the wonderful reasons why they lost that office)

Here is what (insert Dem winner name)has done and will do for us: list credits and promises.

Do Republicans really believe (insert name townspeople use for themselves) should pay more for incompetence than competence?

Guess so.

[CK_John]

4. Now you need to get 5 DEM's to replace the board. Passion without knowledge of process. n/t

[redwitch]

9. You better believe we will try!

That would be a very sweet victory. It will take some time but I believe it can be done.

[mtnsnake]

11. What about writing editorials in the local papers explaining what happened?

[redwitch]

13. We are working on them tonight.

I think our only recourse is to take it to the people. Let's hope that they care. One of the board members is a teacher at our high school. How could a union guy do this to another worker?

[aquart]

14. What did the candidate say about it?

[redwitch]

16. He is really upset and came to us (Dem committee) to help him.

He's not much of a politician, but a heck of a good guy with great qualifications to get the job done. He's a Seabee specializing in road and bridge repair and he has worked for state doing that for years. He just got fed up with the way current guy was doing it. Apparently so was everyone else, hence the landslide.

[gratuitous]

19. Lots of angles

Hopefully you and your group can write a few letters. One angle I'd take is, how does this encourage good people to run for public office, knowing that if the Board of Supervisors disapproves of the will of the people, they will cut the winner's pay.

Hit on the ideas of paying people what they're worth, the childish response of the Supervisor and his board, and how that bucks the Will of the People, as expressed in their choice for highway superintendent.

You might also hit on the idea that this is an elected, not an appointed position, and the salary is based on winning the election not experience. The people voted the Democrat in, knowing what salary he would be paid even without "experience." Once again, the town council is going against the Will of the People.

Republicans really like to hit that "will of the people" meme when it suits their purposes, no matter how spurious the claim might be. In this case, it is actually true.

Last thought, just before I hit "post." If you have an initiative process to amend the city charter, circulate a petition that calls for lowering the pay of the supervisor and the board members. You don't even have to make a serious attempt at signature gathering. The very thought of that petition circulating will probably drive these spoiled brats into apoplexy. And an apoplectic office holder makes stupid comments.

[redwitch]

20. Great idea!

Thank you all, I am off to my meeting, please keep the ideas coming, will keep you updated!

[Capn Sunshine]

22. Make a statement " I'm not in this for the money-I want to serve the people"

Certainly this will create a lot of attention towards the Supervisors and their motive.

A LTE would be cool as well.

Then get a fundraiser going, with a goal of 5 grand.