The way Constance Barnes tells it, Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson and city council might be seen as a Scrooge.

Barnes was talking about the compensation of Vancouver park board commissioners, and how city hall seems to have done nothing about it despite repeated appeals.

“It would have been a very respectful thing for our current mayor and council to have looked at the pay for the Vancouver park board,” Barnes told the Straight in a phone interview.

Barnes, a single mom, knows this very well. She served on park board with Vision Vancouver for two terms, starting in 2008. She didn’t run for re-election in this year’s November civic election.

“It’s a very sore spot with me because every year for the six years that I was in, I did request a review and I feel that we are very underpaid,” Barnes said.

Nothing happened, but not for a lack of trying.

“We talked with, well, [Vision councillor] Raymond Louie who was in charge of finances, and we talked with the mayor as well,” Barnes said.

Neither Louie nor anyone from the office of the mayor granted the Straight an interview before deadline.

“I think I probably talked to everybody,” Barnes related. “You see them all the time you’re working with them. And you’d mention, ‘Well, we really would appreciate, you know, you guys looking at what…the amount of money that we make.’”

According to her, Vision councillor Heather Deal is aware of the situation because Deal was a park commissioner before she was elected to council.

Compared to councillors, park commissioners make peanuts.

A park board chair gets $10,000 a year, and $5,000 for expenses. Board members receive $8,000 per year, and $4,000 for expenses.

That’s loose change next to the mayor’s annual salary of $154,347. Councillors get $67,994. A councillor who’s appointed deputy mayor receives an extra $2,830 a month.

In addition, the mayor and members of council are entitled to expenses.

Some of them also get extra compensation as directors of the Metro Vancouver regional district. That’s $355 for a meeting of up to four hours, and $710 if the meeting exceeds four hours.

For someone who chairs a Metro committee, it’s an additional $355 a month. A Metro board vice-chair like Louie gets $35,468 per year.

Members of council may get more down the road.

After his swearing in on December 8 following his re-election, Robertson told reporters that he wants a review of council remuneration. According to him, the job has become more demanding.

Barnes heard of the review Robertson wants, and she noted that park board was not even mentioned.

Like Barnes, Sarah Blyth served on park board with Vision for six years. She’s also a single mom.

“The commissioners have never done it for money because there isn’t any to be doing it for. And we all know that,” Blyth told the Straight in a phone interview.

But again, taking a look at how park trustees are compensated is a good idea, according to her.

“It’s an awful lot of work to be a park commissioner,” Blyth said.

Whatever she got went into child-care expenses for those times she was attending meetings, transportation, and “proper clothing to look, you know, respectable”.

The NPA’s John Coupar served with Barnes and Blyth in the previous term, and he’s now chair of the board.

“I don’t think it would be unreasonable to look at because that hasn’t changed in 20 years. It hasn’t been adjusted for inflation or anything,” Coupar told the Straight by phone when asked if the review wanted by Mayor Robertson should also include park board pay.

As a public school teacher, Stuart Mackinnon of the Greens makes good money. He was on the board with Barnes and Blyth from 2008 to 2011. He returned to the board with his election last month.

“After you called me, I looked back at my last term in office and figured out that I probably for all of the work that I put in was making about six dollars and 50 cents an hour,” Mackinnon told the Straight by phone.

While money isn’t much of a concern for Mackinnon, he pointed out that it’s not the same for everyone, including those who are thinking of doing public service through elected office.

“And we want to make sure that elected office isn’t just for those people who can afford it,” Mackinnon said. “So I think that there has to be some examination of how we compensate our elected.”

Like Barnes and Blyth, Aaron Jasper was elected two times with Vision to park board and didn’t seek another term in the November election.

According to Barnes, Jasper “really, really rallied” on behalf of his colleagues for a review of their pay.

Barnes also remembers another former Vision colleague, Raj Hundal, who was elected in 2008.

“Raj raised it [the issue about compensation] the very first week we were in,” Barnes said.