WINDING DOWN

We're winding down for the Holidays. Things are quiet...too quiet.

PAY RAISES

Chet Hardin, over at Metroland, takes a look at the pay raises:

Troy City Council votes through pay raises and sets the stage for an early-year battle.

More than two dozen employees at Troy City Hall will be getting pay raises just in time for the holidays this year, thanks to the Republican majority on the city council and Mayor Harry Tutunjian. Whether or not these workers will be keeping those bumps in pay, however, depends on the council’s incoming Democratic majority—and the chances of that happening are slim.

The salary schedule affects “nonrepresented” positions (political appointees and elected officials who don’t belong to a union bargaining unit), including the deputy mayor, comptroller, city clerk and others. It provides a 3.5-percent pay raise for 2008 for most of the employees, on top of retroactive raises dated to the beginning of 2007. The workers affected represent the full scale of pay salaries, from the assistant to the city clerk, who will receive a 3.5-percent pay increase to $27,835, up to the mayor, who will receive a nearly 12- percent pay increase to $95,000.

Mark Wojcik (1st District) said that the timing of the raises was deceitful and devious. OK, here's his actual quote:

“It caught all of us by surprise,” Wojcik said, “Republicans and Democrats. It looks kinda devious and deceitful, the timing. If you took the timing out of it, you would see that it makes a lot of sense.”

Refreshing candor, albeit untimely, from the 1st District. Of course, given the timing, it's hard to take the timing out of it.

MOM'S REQUEST

The following post was requested by a concerned Mother (not mine, who to this day remains unconcerned about my well being).

From the Jersey Journal, December 12, 2007:

HOBOKEN - Police are looking for a man who tried to impersonate a substitute teacher at a local elementary school Friday morning.

The man, dressed in slacks and a sports jacket, showed up at the Wallace Primary School just before 7 a.m. and asked to use a restroom. The security guard said the restrooms were not open to the public, to which the man, later identified by police as 25-year-old Nicola Lengua of Troy, N.Y, replied that he was a substitute teacher, said Principal Charles Tortorella.

MISC

The Record covered last Thursday's Rite-Aid meeting.

Conroy discusses the sale of Kennedy Park.