This past week, Q-line asked: Do you support an increased minimum wage for (City Hall) and contract employees? Why or why not?
Here are your responses: ✆ “If Community Corp. of Santa Monica continues to give minimum-wage workers a one-bedroom apartment for $350 a month and two-bedroom apartments for $550 a month, then it is true that $11.50 an hour, even the old federal minimum wage, will be enough for these workers from East LA and South Central LA to continue to move to Santa Monica. That’s been the case since Community Corp. started years ago... But all of this begs the question, ‘Why is Santa Monica bearing the brunt of Community Corp. of Santa Monica’s goal, just like we are bearing the brunt of Los Angeles County’s homeless problem, along with Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles?’ The beautiful city by the ocean has been ruined by these twin scourges.” ✆ “I agree with those who say that the excessive minimum wage recently passed for city employees is for nothing that will benefit taxpayers. Typical action for this City Council — not much benefits for taxpayers anymore. Witness the traffic and parking mess and the growth of the vagrant and homeless population. It’s exasperating.” ✆ “Increasing a worker’s wage to $11.50 an hour is merely an adjustment for inflation. Please consider that a 10-unit apartment building built in 1973 cost approximately $250,000 to build, including the price of the lot. Today, that building would sell for approximately $1.5 million or more as an apartment building, and as much as $4 million as a converted condominium building by selling each unit for $400,000 each. Trust me, folks, this form of profit well above inflation plays every day of the week in Santa Monica by real estate entities. I could go on and on regarding product price increases due to, by the most part, greed and not inflation nor high wages. It appears the only entity that is not entitled to profiteering are the workers. Yes, I do have a quarrel with the $9.50 per-hour wage. It is not enough.” ✆ “The City Council, proposing that we pay $11.50 an hour for city employees, I find absolutely outrageous. Other parts of the city don’t pay that so why should Santa Monica be any different? I think it’s just terrible. Let the City Council do something interesting like address the parking problems, instead of these ridiculous things. When I started working, I was making $1.25 an hour up in Carmel, so that’s the name of that game.” ✆ “Absolutely not. They already make more than I do. Why the hell should they make more money than that? The heck with them. Let them get a real job. I’ll take their jobs any day.” ✆ “The voters of Santa Monica turned down the living wage proposal and then the City Council goes behind their backs and passes one for the City Hall contractors. It makes no sense. It’s obviously an agenda SMRR has with the unions. The unions are the biggest supporters of SMRR and this is the payback because, otherwise, it makes no sense. It does not affect Santa Monica. If people from Santa Monica were getting a living wage, no one would have a problem. But this is about people who don’t live in Santa Monica.” ✆ “There is little wrong with the city requiring a living wage of its contractors. At the same time, it would only be fair to require the contractors prove they have a diverse staff and aren’t hiring illegal aliens.” ✆ “I am very much in favor of a minimum wage at $11.50. Anyone who says they don’t notice anything different should be surprised because there sure is a lot of traffic going into Santa Monica in the morning and going out at night — people who can’t afford to live here. And it would be very much more efficient if they could (live here) and we would have a lot less pollution problems and smog and traffic. And everyone notices the traffic, so I’m all for it. Plus, people should have a living if they put in a decent day’s work and not just have all the chief executives get the money and then go to jail for getting greedy and wanting more.” ✆ “Yeah, I think it should be raised. That’s a great idea. I’ve got an idea for an improvement: How about raising everyone’s wage in the whole country to like $100 an hour. That would really fix the economy. Make everyone prosperous.” ✆ “It is impossible to sustain first world wages in a third world country, which is what California is rapidly becoming.” ✆ “I think the city is being cheap. It should be giving $21.50 an hour for minimum wage. That way, these people could afford to rent their own places. Hey, wait a minute, they are subsidized by low-income housing. They don’t need to get $21.50. In fact, they don’t need to get $11.50. They can just vote for all of the socialistic programs that the City Council passes out every month. More socialists, great.” ✆ “I am opposed to an increase in the minimum wage because it will up prices and cost taxpayers a bundle, and provide no benefits to them. I think that I’m opposed to it for those reasons. It also will increase money for taxpayers. A lot of these people are illegal aliens and I don’t see giving illegal aliens money to send back to Mexico and ruin our economy is good.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 19, 2005. Read the original PDF.