Cape Coral City Council decides not to put stipends on ballot

The Cape Coral City Council held a committee of the whole meeting to discuss eliminating the controversial stipend.

The council decided Wednesday not to put the topic of their stipends on the ballot for the people of Cape Coral to vote on.

The stipends that the council already voted on include $5,000 extra a month for Mayor John Gunter and $3,333 more a month in salary for each council member.

Residents of Cape Coral criticized the stipend as the approval was done without local input.

Council members discussed four options to decide to possibly eliminate the stipend.

The options included the following:

• Let the Council decide each year how much they’ll be paid.
• Granting a set income for the Council and the Mayor, with an opportunity each year for a 10% increase.
• Base the pay off the wages of those in similarly sized cities in Florida, adjusting the compensation to the 75th percentile of pay in those cities.
• Salary based on the population.

Council members are part-time employees. Cape Coral resident Larry Gillis said they should be paid like it.

“You should not be paid as full-time management like a city manager who gets paid a handsome salary,” Gillis said.

Gillis is one of a few neighbors who came to Wednesday’s committee meeting to remind council members that he’s still angry.

He is so upset, in fact, that he’s running for council. He hates that the current council voted late last year to give themselves stipends.

“I would recommend the first tangible action you might do is to go ahead and reverse the stipend as it is now,” he said.

At their April 10 workshop, council members floated the idea of getting rid of the stipends. Instead, they would put a referendum on the ballot that would change the way they get paid, but that idea died.

The deadline for getting it on the ballot is July 8. The majority decided that’s not enough time.

WINK News reporter Claire Galt asked Councilman Tom Hayden: “People probably saw that the stipends might go away, and now they’re seeing again that they’re not. Are you concerned that this will further widen the gap of trust?”

“I don’t know that it’ll widen the gap of trust. Obviously, people’s stipends are gonna remain controversial. That wasn’t going to change,” he said.

Despite the anger, frustration and rage they have seen for months, council members made it clear that the stipends are staying.

Councilmen Richard Carr and Dan Shepard are the only two who have said publicly they’re not taking the stipends.