To the editor:

The article about the mayoral salaries was a bit unfair in two respects.

First, the graphic on page one was clearly not to scale and it appeared to overestimate the salaries of the mayors of Langley and Coupeville. The $60,000 line should have been well below where the $50,000 line was located on the graphic.

The second concern is that comparing mayoral salaries among many towns assumes that all mayors have the same job description. It wasn’t until one read deep into the article beyond the first page that there was an acknowledgment that the two mayors in question actually perform administrative duties of a city manager or city administrator in addition to mayoral duties.

Given the varied job descriptions of mayors from town to town, a more reasonable comparison would have included the entire administrative salary structure of the towns and compared them on a per capita basis.

It is reasonable to hold our elected officials responsible for their duties and to watch how our tax dollars are spent. It is not reasonable to use skewed graphics and unfair comparisons when passing this information on to your readers.

Lee Roof

Coupeville