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No Action Yet From Philadelphia City Council

By Ben Simmoneau

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The new year brought a newly remade City Council in Philadelphia, but three weeks later all those newly-elected members have yet to take action on anything. That's because the council is still on break – a break that you're paying for.

So far in 2012, City Council has met exactly once: to get sworn in on January 2. The next meeting will not be until next Thursday, January 26, but don't expect council members to forego their paychecks. They are all on the payroll, which means the city will pay out $121,034.94 in salary to the 17 council members for the first three weeks of the year, which included exactly that one official work day.

Council members will be paid a base salary this year of $120,233. Leadership positions pay more: $122,686 for the minority whip, $126,366 for both the minority leader and majority whip and $128,821 for the majority leader. The council president will make $150,904.

New City Council President Darrell Clarke says he and his colleagues are working hard for that money – they're working every day, in fact.

"I believe we actually work harder during the times we're not in council session," he told Eyewitness News on Thursday. "We've been here every day: staff members, council members, briefing. We had a briefing today on Dilworth Plaza. We continue to work in spite of the fact we aren't actually sitting in council chambers."

Clarke says City Council members have spent the past three weeks preparing legislation on several difficult topics facing the city, some of which will likely be introduced at the first meeting next week. Meanwhile, the six new members are being oriented to the job at City Hall.

"Every morning I wake up, I feel a sense of urgency that calls for us to do things a little differently and be more aggressive," Clarke said. He expects Council to begin tackling new ways of raising revenue even before Mayor Michael Nutter presents his new budget in March.

But others question the need for City Council members to be paid such high full-time salaries. Philadelphia Council members take home more money than state lawmakers in Pennsylvania.

"To have no legislative sessions when they're full-time paid legislators for extended periods of time is not fair to the taxpayer," said Matt Wolfe, a Republican Ward Leader who lost a bid for City Council last year but has been critical of the way City Hall operates. "When you give somebody a six-figure salary, you get full-time politicians."

Wolfe says it might be better to pay City Council members a part-time salary or honorarium for the work.

Under the current system, he says Council members are free to spend much of their time on constituent service which he believes should be done by civil service city employees because it only works toward the political self-preservation of Council members.

"What we need are citizens who care about our city and are connected to the city, not full-time politicians," he said.

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