Del Mar’s City Council will ask voters for their first pay hike since 1988 in November.
Council members in San Diego County’s smallest city, and one of its wealthiest, have received $300 a month in compensation for the past 46 years.
They voted 3-2 last week to place a measure on the general election ballot asking voters to approve an increase to $950 monthly for the part-time job, with Councilmembers Dwight Worden and Dan Quirk opposed.
Worden said he thought the wording of the ballot measure was misleading because it states that compensation will be “commencing at $950 a month,” without mentioning the current $300 level. Also, if approved, the measure would authorize the compensation to be adjusted upward annually for inflation based on a state limit without voter approval.
Del Mar’s mayor receives an additional $50 per month. The council appoints one of its members as mayor annually, usually on a rotating basis.
A majority of the council said it was time to update their compensation. Next door in Solana Beach, city council members receive $860 a month, and the mayor gets $960 monthly.
“It’s an equity issue,” said Councilmember Tracy Martinez. Other city councils in the county pay considerably more, she said, and people sometimes ask why she would accept the responsibility of serving on the council for so little compensation. Also, better pay could encourage more and better candidates to run for office.
“This isn’t for us,” Martinez said. “It’s for future council members, long after we are gone.”
The compensation proposal was one of two measures the City Council added to the ballot last week. The other was an expansion of the city hotel room tax known as the transient occupancy tax, or TOT.
The existing ordinance only affects properties with three or more units. If the TOT measure is approved by voters, it would also apply to properties renting just one or two units. In most cases, that would be short-term vacation rentals.
The city’s current TOT rate of 13 percent would remain the same. The change is expected to generate an additional $775,000 annually in revenue for the city’s general fund.
