Commissioner Marty Kiar: I’ll Live On Minimum Wage For A Week
BY BUDDY NEVINS
I guess we won’t see Broward Commissioner Marty Kiar at Steak 954 or Blue Martini’s this week.
He probably can’t afford those joints on a minimum wage salary.
Kiar, a Democrat, and State Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Cutler Bay, have pledged to live on a minimum wage for the next five days to highlight the plight of low income workers.
Minimum wage in Florida is $7.79-an-hour. Kiar earns roughly $44-an-hour plus generous benefits as a commissioner.
The Broward commissioner is lucky it is only for five days. He can’t afford the pay cut based on his financial disclosure for last year.
Kiar was the county’s poorest commissioner with $82,930 of assets.
He said the stunt also brings attention to the need to increase the minimum wage.
“Increasing the minimum wage will not only help struggling families make ends meet, it will also spur economic growth. Low- to middle-income individuals are more likely to immediately spend any additional pay than other income groups. At the end of the day, raising the minimum wage is a win-win situation,” Kiar is quoted in a news release.
The release states that “nearly three-quarters—73 percent—support increasing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation.”
After his election in November 2012, Kiar worked in various county jobs for a day to get a feel for the services being performed.
July 15th, 2013 at 10:31 pm
Hey, how about Kiar actually living in the area he represents for a week? You know …his apartment ( wink/wink)…..Now that would be something worth writing about.
FROM BUDDY:
I believe Kiar’s house is in his commission district. The district dips into a very small section of Davie to scoop up his homestead.
July 15th, 2013 at 10:51 pm
Christine;
You silly cow.
Why don’t you take a moment and speak to Marty Kiar?
You’d find him to be refreshingly honest.
July 15th, 2013 at 10:54 pm
Thank you Buddy for writing about this as it is so important that we bring awareness to the need to increase the minimum wage.
Also Christine, I live in my home with my family which is located within the County Commission district that I am honored to represent.
July 15th, 2013 at 11:04 pm
Chaz,
Residency issues…well at least Kiar lives in his own place….imagine that…a grown man not living with Daddy! How novel! You may want to ask him how it’s done!
July 15th, 2013 at 11:07 pm
Marty,
I apologize.
My mistake.
I know your brother.
I was thinking of Moskowitcz.
July 16th, 2013 at 12:05 am
Great publicity stunt as usual there is Marty “Look at me,” how about you do this, start a business with your “Own money” then you could pay your employees $30.00 per hour, healthcare,dental,retirement benefits,vacations,uniforms. You will bounce from term limited position to another term limited position telling all the business people how to run their business all the while asking for campaign dollars to fund your political career.
July 16th, 2013 at 12:06 am
Finally, a Democrat who isn’t afraid to say where he lives!
July 16th, 2013 at 9:08 am
“live” for a week? – sure hope rent isn’t due that week.
To “walk in someone else’s shoes” – try a month.
July 16th, 2013 at 11:55 am
I want to learn from Commissioner LaMaraca how to live the “Life is a Cabernet” Lifestyle. Since he only appears to have a gros income of about $115,000 a year which allows him too…
1) Live in a $650k house in LHP making less than 12k in mortgage payments a year.
2) Have a Jag
3) Have almost unlimited free time between Commission meetings to take photos of himself to put up on Facebook.
4) Designer clothes and accessories
5) $200,000 in “household” goods, of which most is probably a wine collection
In all seriousness, I respect the point Commissioner Kiar is making this week, he is a good man trying to make a change.
It is unfortunate for him, he has to serve with Commissioner Chip “In Vino” LaMarca who shows us the richer you can get away with not paying your mortage and still live the “Life is a Cabernet” lifestyle.
July 16th, 2013 at 12:37 pm
Minimum wage and a livable wage are two distinct and separate things. Try working on minimum wage with kids. Why has the wage for food servers remained at $2.10 for all these years. Start backing out SS and medicare costs from the paycheck, and another 5 gallons of gas for the week. Assuming the car gets 20 MPG and the job is 10 miles away. $50-75 a week in food.
$16,200 yr before payroll taxes and essential expenses is clearly not a livable wage.
July 16th, 2013 at 2:44 pm
@Christine -how about Kiar actually living in the area he represents for a week?
FROM BUDDY: I believe Kiar’s house is in his commission district. The district dips into a very small section of Davie to scoop up his homestead.
Marty K has irene lieberman to thank for slicing and dicing the district to his benefit
July 16th, 2013 at 5:52 pm
Buddy: Ilene voted against the district map which put Marty’s home in her district.
FROM BUDDY:
Thank you for clearing up this matter mentioned in the comment below.
July 16th, 2013 at 7:49 pm
So Bugs-Bunny here is going to live on minimum wage for a week huh.I’ll say this from observing the Commission they all really like Comm.Kiar. I am glad to see him bringing this gross hourly pay to the forefront(what’s up doc).
July 16th, 2013 at 10:40 pm
Don’t keep raising minimum wage!!! To the average Joe, it seems like the right thing to do. I have a friend that worked for an employer in the late eighties for minimum wage. He owned a small condo here in tamarac, along with a new Chevy Cavilier. Now, he just started working for the same company again, makes $15an hour, way above minimum wage, owns a 2000 Chevy S10, and rents a room in a house. He works for the same small business! He didn’t earn raises over the years because he left the company for years, but he does the same job. Every time minimum wage goes up, the rich get richer! Publix doesn’t pay the difference, they just charge more for everything! For people who make under $75 an hour, their buying power goes down! That means the poor, middle class, and seniors! The businesses will just raise the price of goods to make up the difference, plus some! Look at the history of living wage Buddy…. It gets harder for the poor, middle class, and seniors every time minimum wage goes up!!!!!
July 17th, 2013 at 3:37 pm
Minimum wage played a role in my political evolution. Back in the 70’s and early 80’s, I worked at a place in Lauderhill called Bagel Nosh. One thing I noticed was that President Carter and democrats wanted to raise minimum wage. It was all good. Then Reagan became president and he and the repubs never wanted to raise minimum wage. I was only in my late teens, but that issue was one that made me decide to become a democrat. All these years later, and nothing has changed. Dems are still trying to raise minimum wage and repubs are still trying to not. I have long since moved on from minimum wage busboy jobs. But I knew when I was 16 years old which party cared more about me.
July 17th, 2013 at 7:54 pm
Marty you can do this. Buy chic peas, lima beans, cans of tuna. I saw you on channel 7-w/ those guns(biceps) . Impressive.
July 17th, 2013 at 8:57 pm
three re-district meetings were held late in 2011. seven maps were bandied about, are public record and illustrate the gerrymandering and dealmaking that got them drawn as commissioners ‘weighed in’. lieberman was term limited but as holness stated on several occassions, it was clear lauderhill and other mid-county areas had to be carved up to keep another minority from maybe getting elected. the one or two lauderhill minorities that wanted to run dropped out once maps were final. even wallman got it right when she reported.
spin it like you want posters and Buddy.
ps
I’ll send you the PDF’s of maps as I received them from the guy in county offices in plantation that ‘drew’ them
July 18th, 2013 at 7:09 am
I remember how the maps were drawn. The county commission had pretty much figured it out when Lieberman came out towards the end with some sort of argument that the connection between Weston and Plantation was too narrow for District 1 and a piece of Davie had to be added to widen it. So she hand drew a map to bring the one Kiar Davie district into it.
It clearly was to solely benefit Kiar. The Commission supported it, but when the new official map was drawn up to be voted on Lieberman voted against her own proposal. Interesting?
If Lieberman had not proposed it, Kiar would not have lived in the District.
Did anyone ever ask why Lieberman did what she did?
By the way, without adding that same piece of Davie to District 1, it still wouldn’t have been a minority district.
July 18th, 2013 at 8:51 am
@Watchingsays Do you know that Lieberman calls Kiar before every meeting and advises him how to vote? The district vote doesn’t matter when it is already going to pass.
July 18th, 2013 at 11:19 am
@Watching-
“”By the way, without adding that same piece of Davie to District 1, it still wouldn’t have been a minority district.””
didn’t write it was or would be a ‘minority’ district, just wrote that two lauderhill locals were looking at running for county. once the ‘reconfiguration’ was done, with or withour marty’s house in district one, they dropped out because they didn’t have enough to vote for them.
marty was term limited in tally, right? so he wanted to have a gig. dist 1 was where he had a chance. if he ended up in wexler’s he had little chance as she is not term limited yet on bcc.
and holness kept piping in that his dstrict is the ‘minority’ district w/70% of population ‘minority’
it was carved up that way, taking areas to east and west of 441 so little if any ‘minority’ population spilled into adjacent districts
July 18th, 2013 at 7:08 pm
Oh Really, you are very wrong on one point. Your statement that the two lauderhill locals “dropped out because they didn’t have enough to vote for them,” isn’t correct.
I won’t answer for the other candidate, but when I dropped out I stated the reason, which you must have forgotten.
To remind you, it wasn’t because I didn’t have “enough to vote for” me, it was because I was in the middle of a business deal and needed Bank of America to provide the financing. They found out (though the internet) I was running for County Commission and told me (and I have this in writing) that if I didn’t withdraw from the race they wouldn’t provide the financing. Not only did I have to withdraw, I had to somehow publicize it, and put in writing that I wouldn’t re-enter the race after the financing was complete.
However, they wanted me to stay as Mayor of Lauderhill.
I needed to complete this matter quickly, so I was forced to withdraw from the race. That’s it, plain and simple.
July 19th, 2013 at 8:26 am
Does that mean the financing was a special benefit because you were mayor of Lauderhill?
July 19th, 2013 at 10:17 am
@Richard J Kaplan
As Broward’s leading political corruption fighting activist, your previous comments to this post are extremely troublesome.
“They [BOA] wanted me to stay as Mayor of Lauderhill.”
Why?
It is due to your influence regarding existing and/or future BOA business?
Are you a paid lobbyist for that organization? Are you getting something more than say, er…, free checking and cherry lollipops?
I have reached out to my friends at the Broward State Attorney’s Office, asking them to take a closer look.
Nice job Ace!
July 19th, 2013 at 12:12 pm
Had nothing to do with future, past or present business with the City. I don’t recall that the city does business with BOA. It had to do with qualifying for a loan like any normal person would do.
I am not a lobbyist for anyone and not getting anything from them that anyone else could get.
Actually I took away from BOA several years ago my private business accounts to another bank since they could not service my business very well.
The argument that somehow BOA’s requirement that I drop out of the County Commission race was a ‘special benefit’ escapes me.
If you are looking for something to critize me on, this isn’t it. I was the victim here.
BSO or IG (even though I believe it occured before the IG was empowered) won’t find anything here or I would have brought it to them in the first place I was so upset when it happened. Unfortunately it is a private business matter and within the banks rights.
July 23rd, 2013 at 1:12 pm
Great work Chaz!! as usual!
guess kaplan would make more money staying mayor than the $92k on bcc???
July 24th, 2013 at 9:35 pm
Did Marty Kiar give back his commission salary for a week?