Mike,

I am curious about a statement you made on MCS:

"It didn't matter if citizens paid them $1 a year, 37K, or that obscene $60,000-plus they are currently receiving. Public service in return for their paychecks was not a concern, or certainly not a priority;"

I have a question for you: Given the "purity" of your intentions to run for a BCC seat, why haven’t you denounced any salary in favor of public service for the sake of servancy to Clay Countians? It would seem to be a no-brainer in terms of your actions being in line with your words.

The speculation is – and many people in the county seem to be in agreement – that you need this job. It comes across as more than just a little disingenuous that you’d accept a salary at all especially given your position on salaries, benefits and retirement to members of the BCC. In fact, members of CTLAC would be delighted if you denounced a salary, benefits and retirement.

Will you be turning your salary, benefits and retirement back over to the county if you win the election?

I got that e-mail Monday night from Karen Lake, a supporter of Citizens for Protection of Voters Rights and former member of the Charter Review Commission, who has blogged here often as Key2Life. Normally, I'd answer an e-mail with an e-mail, but feel this forum, which generated the curiosity, is appropriate for this answer. So, here goes ...

Karen, the statement that aroused your curiosity merely pointed out elected officials hiring obviously-incompetent family and/or political cronies aren't really doing the job they were hired to do, so they hadn't earned their salary no matter what it was. Curious that you would find that statement curious.

Since I have little faith in your ability to understand fairly simple statements (like the one you are curious about) and even less faith in your willingness to try to understand, I hesitated to even answer you. But since you are a citizen of Clay County (and though I have to begin with your distorted premise as usual) I'll answer your questions - in public so folks won't have to get it through your usual misunderstood or purposely distorted translation.

First, the compensation issue. I've been consistent all along. The current salary for local County Commissioners is too high, and I have supported, and will continue to support, efforts that will make it more reflective, in my opinion, of the part-time status the Home Rule Charter assigns the job.

With Charter Amendment proposals by both your CPVR group and Citizens for Term Limits and Accountability this November, voters will actually have three compensation options from which to choose. They can leave it as currently planned, with the reduction to the low-to-mid-40s with pay raises based on a state formula, or pass an amendment.

I will support with my personal vote the CTLAC amendment proposal that would lower salaries to $37,000. That propsoal will get my vote because I prefer local voters determining if or when County Commissioners have earned a raise, not the population-based formula for determining raises your PAC is trying to protect.

I also think the total compensation package needs to be addressed openly by the BCC, something I'll try to do if elected so citizens can join the discussion about an appropriate benefits.  Maybe they feel things are fine.  OK, great.  Bringing regular folks into that discussion, heck, even having that discussion, about the full compensation package is overdue.

Who the hell claimed purity on my behalf? It sure hasn't and won't be me. I believe in the basic goodness of people and I imagine every other candidate for every office has motives as pure to them as mine are to me. We all want to be a part of a process that makes Clay County government better. That whole topic is just more of your typical distorted political campaign crap intended to distract from discussion of any real issues. The difference among candidates isn't anyone's purity of motive, it's just a difference in our perspective of local government process and goals.

Your "no-brainer" conclusion that I should denounce my salary if elected was, indeed, apparently reached without use of a brain. You started with my statement, distorted it into a position I've never taken to reach an incorrect premise (that I should denounce compensation to meet your fantasy version of my consistency) which you think I should use to reach the same "no-brainer" decision? No, thanks. I'd rather not ignore my brain when reaching decisions, especially when they're the same decisions you've already reached.

Denouncing salary to please CTLAC, you and CPVR, or any other group of potential political supporters, would be making a decision I don't believe is proper, one made only in the name of political expediency. That's the kind of political BS I abhor and don't practice now while I'm campaigning and won't if elected. And, Karen, so you don't mistake it again, that isn't generated from a sense of superiority or purity, it's just the way I think government business should be conducted.

As a County Commissioner, I'll take my paycheck, whatever voters determine it should be. I'll try hard to earn it in the way I told people I'd earn it, and then say thanks when I cash it. I'd want to more than earn my pay if it was still going to $60,000 or if it was $6,000.  I assume, and hope, that does absolutely nothing to separate me from any other candidate.

Second, my personal "needs," financial or otherwise, are beyond the scope of anything other than your own imagination or, given your propensity for mostly just repeating your group's party lines while launching a political attack by distorting logic or truth, someone else's imagination. You know incredibly little about my personal life and goals, or my personal financial requirements now or for the future. There is a reason it's called a personal life, something that does not completely disappear with office.  It is, after all, personal and really has absolutely nothing to do with job performance as an elected official.

In general, though, would I object to adding a part-time job's income to my family's revenue stream? As I would imagine is true for far more Clay County families than not, hell, no. We're paying more every time we fill up at the pump, too. Adding to the Mann family cash flow, even in the tiniest of increments, isn't an idea I find offensive.  It's just the opposite if the addition came from people hiring me to do a job that allowed me to help my community.

As I stated before, I've never even intimiated that I oppose compensation for elected officials, when they earn it instead of hiring another incompetent branch off the family tree. Curious that you find that so curious.

If, however, you think I or anyone else who "needs" a job would choose to go through the months-long, gas-guzzling, privacy-invading, physically-demanding and personally-expensive job interview process of a campaign (one I began knowing I would be competing against your very well-financed CRC compadre), just to have a political-underdog's chance of personal financial well-being at $37K or $40-something thousand annually for four years, well, that must be another of those conclusions you reached without your brain.

There are much easier to get, many of them higher paying than whatever BCC members will receive.  And, given the extraordinary amount of negative aspects associated with being a public figure and having to deal with certain people's desire to play winning politics at whatever low level it takes, there's more pure crap to deal with than a septic tank cleaner.

The bottom line, so even you can't distort it, is this:

I have and will continue to support smaller, more appropriate in my opinion, compensation packages for County Commissioners. If I'm elected, I'll do the very best job I can in return for whatever folks decide they want to pay me. What I do with whatever that paycheck, as long as it's not illegal, will be is none of your business. I find nothing disengenuous or inconsistent about it.

Michael S. Mann

michaelsmann@comcast.net [1]