I should point out that this is a reconstructed version of the original AIP-277: Re-evaluating ApeCoin DAO Special Council Salaries Structure which was rejected (1, 2) due to its implementation affecting pre-existing salary contracts.
There was a lot of emotion, passion, heated debates etc. in AIP-277. But more importantly, it resulted in a very engaging discussion. If only we had that in the voting reform discussions. 
In my opinion, I believe that the Special Council made a huge mistake by not bringing that AIP up to vote as was originally written. The DAO mandate - which admittedly created a paradox of sorts - clearly indicates this:
- A Board member may be removed and replaced prior to the term pursuant to a majority vote of token holders.
If the DAO can vote to remove any Special Council member “prior to the term” ending, so too can it vote to revise the salaries during said term. In both instances, contracts are clearly involved.
Regardless, nobody was advocating for the Ape Foundation to breach signed contracts, but since we have no clarity as to said contracts, we have no way of knowing what exactly the problem entails nor what breaches would have resulted if this AIP were to pass (as most expect that it would have).
For the record, I had personally said that the reduction of salaries just “because they’re too high” isn’t a reasonable reason to do it.
That said, this is a DAO, and we have to abide by the rules - whether we like them or not. And if we don’t like them, well, that’s what AIPs are for. But what happens if the Ape Foundation flat-out rejects your AIP because it affected them? If nothing else, AIP-277 proved that was clearly untested waters. And so, here we are.
I also want to note that, since the AIP-277 fiasco, we’ve had AIP-282: Information Request - Role of Special Council go to vote and passed! And so we ended up with this : APE Foundation Players – The Special Council [AIP-282] explanation of what exactly the Special Council does. So, there’s that.