Maple Ridge’s new council has pulled a U-turn in the middle of the municipal highway and cancelled its three-year, 13-per-cent wage increase that was due to start next year.
Council approved the resolution at its first meeting Tuesday, after it was introduced by Mayor Ernie Daykin.
Instead, councillor salaries will stay at their current pay while council in the new year reviews the comparators it uses for setting its salaries.
“It came up during the election. Corisa [Bell] was on it. Cheryl [Ashlie] was on it,” Daykin said Thursday.
“I thought, let’s just deal with it, get it off the plate so people aren’t out there wondering.”
Bell had campaigned on cancelling the increase.
The increase was approved last summer and called for a nine-per-cent increase in the mayor’s salary over the same period.
Councillors had previously seen their salaries jump 53 per cent following a review in 2008, bringing their current base pay to $37,300, while the mayor earns $92,300.
Couns. Cheryl Ashlie and Mike Morden opposed the raises at the time, while former councillor Craig Speirs described their opposition as “cheap politics.”