SJ-R.com
Bernard Schoenburg
January 30, 2011
Excerpts:
The aldermanic race in Ward 7 is shaping up as a potentially hot one.
That’s one lesson I took from a forum last week that featured 10 aldermanic candidates from four Springfield wards. The event was sponsored by the Historic West Side Neighborhood Association.
JOE McMENAMIN, a lawyer who nearly won an aldermanic seat in 1995 and ran for Congress in 2008, got things going when he took off after highly paid firefighters.
“I don’t mean to be picking on the firemen, and three of my strongest supporters are old-time firemen who remember what the starting pay used to be 40, 50 years ago,” McMenamin said. “I’ve got the city payroll right here, and some people are staggered by that.”
Statistics from 2009 showed that only one person working for city police – the chief — made more than $100,000 annually, McMenamin said, but 20 firefighters were in that category. (By McMenamin’s numbers, 78 City Water, Light & Power employees also were paid in that range.)
“There’s something wrong with a fire department that can pay that kind of salaries,” McMenamin said. “The taxpayers can’t afford it, and it has to be cleaned up. And someone’s got to take on some powerful interests. But guess what — of the 200 firemen, one-half of them now live outside the city. They don’t get to vote.”
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McMenamin said three retired firefighters have urged him to talk about departmental pay. He named one example, saying that a friend, PHIL HARRIS, was paid more than $150,000 in 2009.
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McMenamin did say that five of the 20 firefighters who were paid over $100,000 in 2009 received payouts for unused sick or vacation time upon retirement.
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 