Throw the bums out!

Voters of Boston: come the 2007 city elections, remember your city councilors' decision to give themselves a big fat pay raise without soliciting your input.

Even if you think the councilors deserve to make $87,500 a year--$12,500 more than they made last year, and nearly $32,000 more than state legislators!--signing off on the raise without holding a public hearing is disgusting. 

The council also denied voters a chance to weigh in on a $25,000 jump in Mayor Tom Menino's salary. Menino will make a cool $175,000 annually if the raises go through--which they will, when Menino gives them his imprimatur. Keep this in mind the next time Menino complains that Boston's strapped for cash.

And listen--if anyone who understands the city's convoluted pension system can tell us what Menino's proposed $25,000 raise will do for his pension when he rides off into the sunset, please fill us in. I've tried to get this information before, but they don't make it easy over at City Hall.

Kudos to Felix Arroyo and Chuck Turner for opposing the raises. And extra jeers to District 3 councilor Maureen Feeney, who canceled a scheduled hearing on the issue.

Mass Marrier offers his take on this utterly bogus development here.