City Committee Considers How to Move Forward with $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage Ordinance Proposal

During a special meeting on Thursday about how to proceed with consideration of Pasadena city ordinance to raise the minimum wage, the City Council’s Economic Development and Technology committee a number of comments from residents who say they can barely scrape by everyday with the current $9 per hour minimum mandated by the state.

Most of those who packed the Council chambers room represented Pasadenan’s for a Livable Wage, the group advocating for a wage raise to $15 by 2020. Paul Little of Pasadena Chamber of Commerce stood as the lone voice representing the employers of Pasadena, who will be paying out the increased wages.

“When this passes, I’d like to see assistance to smaller businesses in the city of Pasadena,” Councilmember Tyron Hampton said.

Hampton also suggested that the issue should be referred to as “Livable Wage” rather than “minimum wage” but was overruled in the end by other committee members who argued for the sake of name clarity before the public.

“If you prepare to go to $25 an hour, that would be a livable wage, but right now that is not feasible,” Attorney Dale Gronemeier said during public comment. “In terms of how you proceed — look, we are going to have a minimum wage one way or another in Pasadena. I believe it will come because the City Council will legislate and enact something that will be acceptable to the community, but if the City doesn’t act we will take the issue to the ballot and get it one way or the other. The polls say 80 percent of the people support that.“

Gronemeier also pressed the issue of enforcing the minimum wage once it is enacted and said after the meeting that he felt confident the councilmembers will now include enforcement within the parameters of the conversation going forward, something he considered a win.

Ten California cities have already passed wage ordinances and each of those cities also included provisions to collect, protect and enforce the wage ordinances.

The committee directed staff to move forward by first gathering together experts to speak about both sides of the issue to the committee, laying a baseline understanding. Then the committee will host an open forum as a kickoff event for both sides to attend with an allotted number of speakers for each side.

The open forum will be followed by strategically placed meetings around the city for the advocate groups first and then the business community separately, for a total of four forums.

“The challenge before all of us, the committee, the public and the city is to reach an outcome that benefits Pasadena, that’s consistent with our values, that addresses the needs of our workforce and our business community. That’s a tough challenge,” Committee Chair Victor Gordo said. “It’s my hope that whatever the outcome may be, that everyone who participated in the process will walk away having been heard.”

Committee members said that youth employment, nonprofits, wage theft and enforcement were topics of interest that should be studied further and talked about at the forums.

“We have a new Mayor who was swept into office pretty handily. This was an issue that was talked a lot about at the campaign. I don’t think it’s really this committee’s role to decide. The full council should ultimately be involved,” Councilmember Steve Madison said before he had to leave to catch an airplane flight.

Los Angeles City made an exemption in the minimum wage ordinance for youth training level wages up to the first 160 hours and for re-entry programs such as Homeboy Industries.

“Prison reentry is extremely important, yes Father Boyle is an iconic leader, but the basis for the need for this kind of action is every bit present with those employees as it is everybody else. I would have a hard time understanding why we should be exempting some of our friends over on the side,” Madison said.

Councilmember Andy Wilson said this was an issue where the intent is good but the answer is not obvious.

“We are trying to do the right thing, but we don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot,” said. “We don’t want to reduce jobs in our city in the hopes of trying to help people. That would be unfortunate unintended consequences.”

Of the 88 cities within Los Angeles county, only Long Beach, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood are formally discussing a minimum wage ordinance. Long Beach directed its City manager to hire a consultant to analyze the total work force, setting aside a budget of $65,000 to prepare a study.

“We need to look at what could possibly happen here, the good, the bad and the ugly,” Pasadena Chamber of Commerce President Paul Little said. “While folks may be in a hurry to see you do this, if you are going to do this I think you should do it in a way that you make appropriate decisions, however that may be.”

Several community groups came to support the increase to $15 by 2020 including Friends in Deed, Pasadena Job Center, CHIRLA, First Congregational Church, the Neighborhood Universalist Church, All Saints, affordable housing advocates, Arroyo Democratic Club and others.

Pasadena has 104,793 full and part time jobs and has 58,591 people who make up the workforce according to a 2013 census. There are currently 9,000 businesses with one employee or more that have business licenses within Pasadena.

“It’s a bigger number than I expected,” Economic Development Manager Eric Duyshart said.

Duyshart suggested the format of several forums and helped frame the discussion.

Duyshart said the city does not currently review payroll or do wage enforcement. Los Angeles employed five people as enforcement officers with a $1 million budget and San Francisco allotted $2 million so far with 20 enforcement officers.

Several minimum wage workers ranging from McDonald’s employees to hotel workers attended the meeting to share their stories of how an increase could “change their lives.”

Janette Beard runs from one part-time to the other, has no health insurance, and often has to eat fast food because of lack of time to eat healthier options, which has severely impacted her health.

“Not sometimes but all the time I feel like I’ve failed my son,” Beard said, bursting into tears.

Another woman spoke who had been homeless in the past and the only way she can afford to live in Pasadena is to live with four other women who also work minimum wage jobs without paying utilities.

“My $10 an hour does not allow me enough money to pay for burial insurance. I know that if I were to die tomorrow my burial expenses would be a burden on my family and friends. I live from paycheck to paycheck,” Maria-Elena Jurez said. “I would like to be more secure financially and not always feel so strapped.”