To the Editor,Port Alberni City Councillor John Douglas’s notice of motion to increase pay rates for the mayor and council is ill-advised, premature, and poorly thought out.As council knows, Catalyst Paper has challenged the District of North Cowichan’s industrial tax rates, and the outcome of that challenge before the Supreme Court of Canada is unknown at this time. If Catalyst wins its challenge, there will be revenue consequences for all municipalities in which the company operates.Further, if council awards pay increases to themselves now, there will be inevitable new pay demands from CUPE and likely from, non-unionized staff and management. And the size of salary increases to city firefighters is unknown at this time.In short, this is absolutely the worst time for the mayor council to consider pay increases for themselves.Council should shelve the idea until the above issues are resolved.Obviously this poor idea was put forward without any due regard to the consequences.Richard Berg,Port Alberni