Why I voted to keep city health benefits

I recently voted to retain health care benefits for Des Plaines public officials. Here are the reasons why.

First, in my view, the proper question for us to consider should have been how much the aldermen, the clerk and the mayor receive in compensation - which in addition to health care benefits includes salary, expenses and in the case of the mayor a city supplied car, a questionable benefit when the mayor works a full-time job in downtown Chicago - and how this compensation should be changed.

Second, with the way the general counsel interpreted the law, our health care benefits could have stopped immediately when the general counsel alleged our health benefits were never properly granted in the first place.

When one alderman's wife faces cancer and another alderman's daughter also faces cancer, I could never vote to remove their benefits no matter how small the chance might be they would lose them.

Third, the mayor's action to administratively remove Des Plaines public officials' health benefits after they had been repeatedly authorized by the city council for over 30 years seemed wrong and unsupported by the law, the general counsel's opinion notwithstanding.

As a public official, I felt I had to defend our rights and powers as aldermen by opposing this move, which changed how many votes it took to restore the health benefit removed by the mayor from five out of eight to six out of eight votes.

What I do support is an outside commission of Des Plaines residents appointed by the aldermen and the mayor to recommend just what our compensation should be. This is what other legislative bodies including our legislature do to avoid conflict of interest problems. We should do the same.

Alderman Malcolm Chester

Des Plaines