If next week were a normal week, on Monday you could expect to read our weekly digest of the most interesting bills introduced in City Council the previous Thursday. But there won't be any new bills introduced this week, because City Council is going on holiday break...for the next two months.

That's a nice long winter break, but it's not the only long break Councilmembers treat themselves to. This past year, members also took an extended holiday between June 16th and September 8th. In total, Council was only in session for 32 of the 52 weeks in 2016--about 62% of the time--and took 20 weeks off from legislating.

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Is this just a cheap shot? Not really. Councilmembers would probably protest that they really spend this time working in a different way, meeting people and attending events in their districts. And, sure. But that is also what they do all the time<, not a special part of the job that they can only do on breaks. Any way you slice it, for 40% of the year our "full-time" Council dials it down to a more leisurely work schedule. It must be nice to be able to do that while still collecting a salary of between $129,000 and $162,000 a year.

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