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# Living wage supporters to endorse candidates
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/living-wage-supporters-to-endorse-candidates/
- Published: 2004-07-23T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:45:42.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

funds to the candidates it chooses to support, Rothstein said.

While living wage activists have found support from a majority of current City Council members, they have traditionally faced opposition from the Chamber of Commerce along with many of the city’s businesses and residents. The 2002 measure was defeated 13,930 to 12,990 — a difference of 940 votes.

Nat Trives, the chamber’s chairman of the board, said the chamber was opposed to the lack of uniformity in the 2002 ballot initiative and expressed concerns about a living wage for city employees and contractors without extensive research of other cities with such policies.

“If you’re going to have a living wage it should be determined by a coalition of people in the community with the businesses and the workers in the community present,” Trives said. “(The 2002 ballot measure) seemed ludicrous to us. It was-n’t for the whole of Santa Monica.”

Councilmember Herb Katz, one of a three-member minority that has opposed the $11.50 minimum for city employees and contractors, expressed similar frustration with the policy.

“It just doesn’t make sense to me,” he said. “We’ll just do this, then we’ll slip in a little more next time, a little more next time, and so on. It’s not going to be cheap, and it’s not the right approach.”

With money allocated to living wage expenses for this year, Katz said it would be unlikely that the four councilmember majority of Bloom, Feinstein, Kevin McKeown and Ken Genser would lose the control required to write the living wage for city employees into law.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 23, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/072304.pdf?ref=smdp.com)