City Council Gets Raise.

Los Angeles City Council members, already the highest paid in the nation, got a 4 percent pay raise retroactive to July 1, 1999.

The raise is on top of a 2.5 percent pay increase that City Council members received July 1 - bumping their annual salaries a total of 6.5 percent to $117,900 and drawing loud protests from taxpayer and homeowner groups. Council members Alex Padilla, Mike Feuer and Laura Chick said they would not accept all or part of the latest raise.

In 1990, Los Angeles voters tied the council salaries to the pay for municipal court judges. The automatic trigger has boosted council pay nearly 90 percent in the past decade.