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The People of Murrieta NOT heard
When the people voted on November 2, 2010, they felt their vote would count. Murrieta voted on term limits, city council compensation caps, and city manager caps in the last election. All these measures passed by supermajorities.
These measures qualified in 2008 and could have been put on the 2008 ballot. Instead, they were pushed off to 2010. Now they are being pushed off again by creating city ordinances that do not reflect the measures that were passed by the people. These must now go to court.
The city council voted on Feb 1, 2011 to adopt the term limit measures as written. As a matter of record, these measures, by law, apply to the newly or reelected councilmen in the 2010 election. If this law does not do that, then it is not the law passed in the last election.
The city attorney, at the direction of the city council, rewrote the city compensation limitation measure. They are now attempting to rewrite the city manager compensation measure that was already passed.
During the course of the city council meeting, the word “illegal” was brought up dozens of times in referring to these measures. For the record, the city attorney or a city councilman cannot say that something is illegal; only a judge can say something is illegal.
These measures are not illegal as written. Clarifications were needed to clarify median family or household income and the reference for that but everything else in these measures is legal as passed by the people.
The city compensation cap measure, Measure D, was changed by the city council, in their new ordinance, to allow for an increase in the city council pay. The measure that was passed does not allow for an increase in city council pay. It keeps the stipend they receive at $600 and allows for other costs such as health care and memberships in WRCOG to be within the 15% limitation as stated in the measure per the people vote mandated by California Code #36516 (4b). California Code #36516 (4b) states that “whether city council members shall receive a salary for services, and the amount of that salary, may be submitted to the electors”.
The city councilmen are part time. There is no special category for them. As defined in part-time, they do not receive vacation or sick pay. The California Code, Code #36516 (4d), stated by the city council, states that if employees receive benefits, then the city council is entitled to receive the same benefits, as well, but are not required to receive them if they do not want them. Not all city employees receive benefits and not all receive the same platinum benefits that most of the city council receives; 40% of the city employees receive the platinum health care package of $14,699 per year. 10% of employees, including part time employees, receive no benefits. 50% receive benefits between those two dollar figures with some receiving very little.
Therefore the city councilmen who receive these benefits are in violation of the government code. Past employees who have not received benefits in the past can sue for past benefits comparable to that of the city council.
Measure E is being rewritten by the city council using California Code #36506 which states that “the city council shall fix the compensation of all appointive officers and employees’. However, the overriding law is the law of the people by initiative; California Code #34852 states that the people “may fix his compensation”. “His” refers to the city manager.
The people now need to spend their own money to fight for the measures that were passed. The city will use the people’s tax money to fight against the people to correct this wrong. These new ordinances created in secret sessions by the city council and the legal counsel cost the city with legal fees. These secret closed sessions were done with no oversight by the people who passed them. This should be illegal.
In the end, Murrieta and other cities are being told that, no matter what the people pass by initiative, the city council can change them to mean whatever they want it to say. Furthermore, what it really means is that “we the people” have lost a little more of our freedoms as we slide into a “Banana Republic” run by government officials.
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