City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto says he will vote to rescind a one-time retroactive retirement payment for outgoing members of the Metro Vancouver board following an outcry from the public.
During the March 23 Metro board meeting, the board voted itself a 15 per cent raise as well as a lump sum retirement payout for outgoing directors that would amount to $1,100 per year served retroactive to 2007.
Mussatto and District of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton both would have been entitled to about $12,000, as both have announced their plans not to run for office again. Walton voted against the compensation package.
Following the controversy, Port Coquitlam Mayor and Metro board chair Greg Moore said he planned to put forward a motion of reconsideration at the next meeting on April 27.
Mussatto, who is a director at Metro, initially voted in favour of the retroactive pay, but he told his own council April 9 that he no longer supported the decision.
“Was it wrong to do that? Yeah, we shouldn’t have done the retroactive point, and I get that, and I had some challenges with it at the time as well, however, I did vote for it, so I’m going to be honest about that,” he said. “But I am voting to repeal it, I don’t think it’s appropriate to have the retroactivity.”
Mussatto, however, said he would be supporting the salary increase portion because the 15 per cent bump is intended to offset a federal decision to get rid of a one-third tax deductible for council members to cover expenses.
“I will be supporting the salary increase to offset the one-third tax deductibility so that people that will be serving after me will get a wage increase but they’ll pay more tax on it,” he said.
Council voted unanimously to write to Metro to express strong opposition to a retroactive retirement package, while a separate resolution to write to Metro to express strong opposition to a salary increase to offset the loss of the tax writeoff was defeated 5-2.
After four terms as mayor, Mussatto announced last month that he would not be seeking re-election in the Oct. 20 municipal election.
