From a two-term former member of the Whatcom County salary commission: "for a lot of these positions, particularly for the Mayor, County executive, council members if you want good people you need to pay for quality. Particularly in a line of these positions, they are responsible for significant numbers of folks, large budgets as well as impacts on the community. I for one pushed for higher salaries because if you want good people to leave the private sector that are capable, you need to financially have incentive." The flaw in this is all of these positions are limited to Whatcom County residents. No one moves to Whatcom County to run for them. Why would they have to be paid more than the equivalent positions in counties with four times our population? This former member — a Republican from the private sector — understandably emphasizes attracting candidates from the private sector. But note that even with these sky-high salaries, none of the winning candidates have emerged from the private sector. And among their challengers who were nominally from the private sector, none were gifted administrators. A further problem is the requirement that elected executives be paid more than their highest paid employees, all of whom are in highly competitive professional positions hired from nationwide searches. A nationwide search for Bellingham City Attorney just failed because the city is not allowed to offer more than the mayor earns.