Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Jul 03/98) - Mayor George Roach and council are meeting the community's wrath after raising the pay for the next elected council.

"I thought (the pay rise) was a dead issue. Then I read it in the paper that they put it through to give themselves a raise," said taxpayer Holly Davis.

"I just don't believe the previous council should be upping the next council's salary because then you're going to get people who don't care about the community but that dollar value is sure looking good to them."

The town is $2.4 million in debt thanks to cost overruns on the Midnight Sun Arena and unpaid taxes from residents. This spurred Davis to question whether this is the time for a raise for council.

Councillors currently receive $100 for regular and special council meetings but the next elected council, which takes office Nov. 1, will receive $150 for the same meetings.

The next batch of councillors will also be paid to sit on standing committees, unlike current councillors, who sit on committees for free.

The mayor's salary will jump from $34,353 to $39,800, after travel and housing allowances are included.

Mayor Roach explained he alone appointed a committee of long-time tax-paying Inuvik residents to investigate and recommend a salary proposal.

Jack Heath, Denny Lennie, Roberta Van Bridger and Ian Butters sat on the committee.

"I know that our names weren't mentioned to the council members when (we made) our recommendation to accept the proposal, which was prepared by the town staff," said Butters, who did not know his name would be made public after sitting on the committee.

"Thirty per cent of peanuts is still peanuts," he said, to explain sitting on council is not a way to get rich.

"We reviewed the proposal, which was presented to us and we had comparisons with the other tax-based municipalities of the Western Arctic," he said.

"The rates that were proposed for all levels of office -- mayor, deputy mayor and councillors -- were consistent with the other communities."

Outside Yellowknife, the other tax-based communities in the Western Arctic are Norman Wells, Hay River and Fort Smith.

When council saw the committee's recommendation June 10, Roach said he had just returned to Inuvik after being out of town for the NWT Association of Municipalities AGM and had not had time to read the recommendation.

Council passed the recommendation without any discussion.

Roach called the idea of a referendum on the increase "foolish."

"If people don't like it they won't vote for people who are running," he said.

Roach, who collects a pension from the government as a retired teacher, said he is not in the mayor's seat for the money. He does not collect a salary as president of the NWT Association of Municipalities.

"I did teach school here for 25 years and I could work across the street at Samuel Hearne where I would earn about $70,000, I suppose -- $70,000 plus, for five and a half hours a day for nine months of the year with only one or two night meetings a year."

Still, these explanations are not enough for Davis. "We've just gone through quite a few hard years and this tax base here does not have the dollar values to afford higher salaries for them."

"Those positions, when they came on board, they knew exactly what we were doing. Why do we have to keep upping their salary?"