Hens on Council agenda -- will the gorilla be?

On tonight's episode of the hit series "Durham City Council," intrepid bands of neighborhood progressives and environmentalists will again press their case for the allowance of urban hens within city limits. Will the forces of traditionalism led last time by Victoria Peterson and Lavonia Allison find their arguments against any change hold sway? Or will Frank Hyman and crew prevail in their battle of the birds?

It's an interesting animal in the room. But it's by no means the only animal in the room tonight.

To me, that would be the eight hundred pound gorilla in the corner, which is most relevant to the agenda as docket item number nineteen: "FY2010 Budget and FY2010-2015 CIP." Not that tonight is the only night when the budget will be up for discussion -- the current series of Coffees with Council play a key role for getting citizen feedback, too.

Of course, it's no secret that financial times are tough. A gap of more than $5 million exists this fiscal year, largely due to declines in sales taxes, licenses, fees and other revenue the City counts on.

As citizens are being warned, though, next year's gap looks even more substantial -- $20 million or more, by one account.

But not all of that gap is due simply to the revenue declines we're seeing this year. And therein lies the gorilla in the room, the driver of a good portion of this gap: the ongoing pay parity study, conducted by outside consultants with the help of municipal staff, and aimed at bring Durham city employees' pay in line with those at other cities.

We've heard some rumblings about employee pay, of course. City Councilman Eugene Brown has noted that employee salaries and benefits represent just less than two-thirds of the City operational budget, for instance. 

Yet while individual operating projects draw scrutiny -- like the Herald-Sun's odd calling-out of the NC147 pedestrian bridge yesterday, an item well past the bid phase and on the consent agenda for tonight's meeting, making it the proverbial post-equine-egress liminal boundary reconsideration -- it's rare to see staff salaries draw the same attention. 

(In fairness to those wacky Pickett Rd. op-ed folks, they also called out the potential elimination of the Human Relations Commission as a way to save two-thirds of a million dollars a year. The idea would be likely to draw both some pockets of strong support on Council as well as some fierce opposition -- expect that one to be a third rail of Bull City politics, one that would lead to a scorched-earth war before any adoption.)

Of course, the pay parity study has drawn the most attention in its lacunae; witness the complaints this fall from police corporals and fire technicians after entry-level officers saw their salaries increase, leading to pay compression with these second-tier positions, leading to grumbling and back-door negotiations.

Brown as well as OWDNA's Kelly Jarrett, as we noted here last week, have both proposed taking a look at givebacks by employees earning over $50,000 as a way of balancing the impact of cuts; Brown called for this as opposed to layoffs wherever possible.

Yet the questions of the pay study still loom large. Estimates by police officers lobbying over the pay compression issue this fall noted that the cost of fixing that one problem ranged from $1.8 to $4.3 million.

Factor in other public safety areas; then add on other city departments -- and you suddenly end up with a fairly significant potential impact.

Yet it's an item that hasn't been making the papers. Maybe it's been behind the scenes at the budget retreat last Friday or in other forums, but it's not hitting the public discourse in a big way.

To me, this seems like the time to ask a tough question: is this a time when we can afford to solve the problems of pay equity throughout City Hall? Do we try to solve them for all employees? For police and fire responders only? For no one?

These aren't easy questions to solve. Like we noted, they're the metaphorical gorilla in the room.

Whether they get more attention, tonight and in the weeks to come, than the other animal clucking its way in the public discourse is likely to be a rather pricy question in the months to come.

Comments

[FoghornLeghorn]

Perhaps Lavonia will talk about how she used to march beside Frank Perdue in the early years of the Chicken Rights Movement, defending the right of tender chickens everywhere. Then someone can stand up and point out she rented tumble-down coops for years to the poorest chickens in town after inheriting a commercial poultry business from her father. Or maybe she'll just run around the chambers, screaming about how white chickens want to take over her neighborhood? Sure hope they run it on cable TV!

Lavonia Allison, chicken expert: she's got the final word when it comes to the bird.

[Steve]

C'mon, can you watch the fowl language please?

[S. Gwaltney]

Please just pass this thing...unreal.

Also, it would scare me if Mr. Brown was in charge of my salary.

[Erik]

Congrats to Frank and the folks at HENS! Sounds like common sense finally won the day.

By the way, I love how Jim Wise quoted Lavonia Allison as saying that Durham would be "retrogressing" if they allowed chickens. Retrogressing? Is that a word? Also, isn't retro cool? Heck, I'm going to put on some Chuck Taylors and retrogress right now...