CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A proposed $20,000 raise for Charleston Mayor Danny Jones was taken off the agenda for the city council’s Monday night meeting, after Jones held a news conference earlier in the day.
Jones, who was reelected to a fourth term, last month, said at the conference that the time isn’t right for a raise and he doesn’t want controversy surrounding his last term in office.
“I just don’t want to end my term or start my new term embroiled in a controversy involving money that involves me personally,” Jones said.
Jones handed out a document at Monday’s news conference detailing the salaries of several mayors in Ohio that make more than his $100,000 despite being in charge of smaller towns. He said he was happy making the money that he does currently.
“I am very grateful for the salary I make,” he said. “This city has always been very generous to me, and I have tried my best to be generous to this city.”
Jones’ main concern was that a salary raise for him might cause dissension among citizens considering there are other places that the money could be spent, roads in particular.
“If you wait two years and in the middle of the term you raise the salary, and then the people out there in the public they want their potholes fixed, they say ‘what are they doing down there’,” he said.
Charleston City Council held their meeting without discussing the raise, and Jones confirmed that the subject cannot be discussed again because a raise cannot be discussed during a term. Jones will be sworn in for his fourth term June 15.