Summer officially started at 1:16 Tuesday afternoon. For the average working stiff in Philadelphia — you know, the guy who pays the bloated salaries of the 17 members of City Council — he’s looking forward to a summer vacation of a week at The Shore, two weeks, if he’s lucky.
City Council members are looking forward to three months of vacation. Nice job if you can get it.
Council this week is likely to give final approval of yet another hike in city property taxes — nearly 4 percent, which comes on the heels of last year’s hike of 10 percent. After that, off members go for 12 weeks of fun in the sun on the taxpayers’ dime and time.
Never mind that Philadelphia has a host of serious issues that need to be addressed by the city’s official legislative body. The DROP fiasco. School funding. High taxes. Contracts for municipal workers. Police and fire protection. Crime. Plenty of work remains.
Anybody who thinks Council members would spend a summer session just sitting around chambers twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do is either drunk or high on drugs.
For accepting full-time pay ($121,000 a year and up) for part-time work (one meeting per week, nine months per year), Council members should be ashamed of themselves, and Philadelphia citizens should be ashamed of themselves for allowing their overpaid, underworked, pompous public “servants” to get away with it.
Yo Philly, especially you lazy bums who don’t vote: You get the government you don’t vote for. Remember that in November.
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