Delta City Council candidate Mike Smith wants the new city council to stay away from golden handshakes.
Smith says the special payment the current council passed themselves last year without a debate in public or prior public consultation has drawn anger and distrust in local elected officials.
It’s one of the big reasons why he decided it’s time for change to the entire makeup of Delta City Council.
“Everyone on this Delta Council worked out a golden handshake for themselves and backdated it 12 years. Only after the media questioned them a year later they tried to justify what a busy job it is being a city councillor,” Smith says in a news release.
“At over fifty-grand a year plus expenses I think Delta Council is well compensated already. If they think they deserve more, I ask what happened to that motto ‘service before self’ we hear so much about. Let the people decide.”
Starting this year councillors leaving Delta City Council get one-time payouts based on years of service. They voted themselves the payouts in 2017.
“It was all done really quietly. The only mention of this whole thing is buried in a report by Delta’s then city manager about pay raises. I get angry every time I think about it,” says Smith.
An activist and labour leader, Smith is challenging all incoming city councillors to sign a pledge they will not vote themselves golden handshakes in the future. He says probably nothing can be done about the deal the current Delta Council and Mayor made themselves but challenges them to freeze their lump sum payouts to whatever they would be owed as of this year.
Mike Smith also announced his platform includes an end to double dipping by challenging everyone entering council to sign a pledge that if they are voted into another public office, they agree if they don’t resign to forfeit their entire council salary to a Delta charitable group.
Smith says during his campaign he will also detail Delta’s poor taxation and finances including how taxation revenue has been well above the Metro Vancouver average. He says Delta does not have the facilities to show for it.
The election takes place Oct. 20.
