That’s the outlook of Wodonga councillor Libby Hall who spoke out on Monday night as the city adopted remuneration rates for the mayor and councillors for the next four years.

“I believe that council allowances are fair and they are very often portrayed in public as being the opposite and that we don’t deserve an allowance or that we should be doing our council work for nothing or very little,” Cr Hall said.

“I’d like to say that these comments generally come from people who have never walked a mile in councillors’ or mayors’ shoes.

“Our job comes with huge responsibility, plenty of out of hours community engagement and much criticism.

“I would like to think that we as councillors are worthy of our allowances and that we provide the governance and leadership that is expected of us by our community.”

Flak on Facebook in response to the council supporting in draft form, $24,730 for councillors and $76,521 for the mayor, did not translate into formal opposition.

Not one submission was received by the council after the amounts set were open to public comment from May 17 to June 14.

Councillor Danny Lowe concurred with Cr Hall.

“I just want to echo Cr Hall’s comments that we all put in a lot of hours and we’re all happy to do that,” Cr Lowe said.

He noted that in March he had only four nights at home with the rest of evenings during that month filled with meetings related to council.

Cr Lowe is officially mayor until July 30 with incumbent Anna Speedie on holidays.

He was nominated by former mayor John Watson and appointed by fellow councillors on Monday night.