Fort Collins City Council Public Comment 051623 Part 1

5:01AM May 21, 2023

Speakers:

Keywords:

fort collins

minimum wage

workers

community

wages

businesses

jobs

restaurants

pay

increase

costs

people

families

speak

raising

years

live

work

reducing

livable wage

To remember people who signed up, wishing to speak, and if you signed up to speak remotely, please raise your hand now using the raise hand function until you're called upon. Okay. Due to the quantity of speakers, we'll go with three minutes tonight. For everyone to make their comments, you have three minutes, everyone signed up to speak about the same opportunity for the time to share your comments. When you start speaking, it'll go green light, and then 30 seconds left, you'll see a yellow light. And when you see a red light, that's when I politely but very firmly, thank you for your comments so that we can be a third of each speaker. For those in chamber, please approach the podium as you're seeing, see your name coming up that really expedite so you can use either microphone. Okay. Let's do that. I'm just going to go ahead and start with the top speaker and we, whether you're in person or remote, we'll just take you in the order you signed up. Okay. So we have Karla Wagner, then Sophie, Miriam, and then Eric Cornell. So please come up, state your name and tell us what you'd like us to.

Good afternoon evening. It's so pleased to be here. My name is Karla, partner Waggoner. And I've been living here in Fort Collins for about 13 years.

And here, me and I came

from Arizona, after 30 years of living in two hot climate, I decided this would be much better. I appreciate your listening to me today. When I first moved up here was not yet retired, I was working at a underwriting position with the mortgage company. And when I finally retired, totally, I was recruited homecare agency here in Fort Collins, and hopefully did well with the clients. It could be your parents, your aunt and uncle, your grandparents or whatever. And I worked a full 40 hours a week with Ray to pay of $11 an hour. If I did it overnight, that might bring me $14 an hour. And that was from 2012. And two, most currently when the pandemic was forcing me not to be able to go home to home. My son and his best friend who is a doctor said, You're grounded, you can't go to. And I've really missed I really miss it. They become like family to me seniors especially. And now that I am living on Social Security only, and depleted most of my 401 K funds and my retirement money, I am having to consider going back into that industry or another and that the rate of pay in Fort Collins, I don't think that I can improve my situation, as I watched my fellow care workers over these years, leaving the industry because they don't make enough money. And they're really the end result is the client who doesn't get the proper care who may not get the most educated and or trained care worker taking care of them. 24/7. So I'm really asking you to consider this wage increase because we need as a growing population. And I'm one of the baby boomers right out front. We need to have viable wages, to be able to support not only ourselves, but many times children. And a lot of the people who are doing this work, have small children and can hardly pay for the groceries, the rent on the wages that they're making. So I urge you and I thank you and I want you to strongly consider that this issue be definitely focused on for not the long range but the short range as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Perfect timing. Next up remotely. We have Sophie Mariam are in Hello, hello. Hear me? Yep, please go ahead. Excellent.

Good evening council members. My name is Sophie Mariam and I'm a labor policy analyst at the Colorado fiscal Institute. CFI is a statewide nonprofit organization that works to make Colorado a state where fiscal and tax policies promote equity and widespread economic prosperity. I'm here to testify also on the minimum wage ordinance because a strong body of economic evidence shows that minimum wage increases support consumer spending and reduce income inequality without reducing employment. A recent meta analysis of fit See, sorry 37 studies over the last 15 years found that there's no support for the proposition that a minimum wage has any important effect on employment across the US. And a recent study actually finds that this is true as well. For small businesses. A higher wage makes it easier for small businesses to recruit workers and retain them and reduces turnover rates. According to a 2023 Berkeley study, and other research even shows that it gives workers a productivity boost. The research tells us that minimum wage increases support a stronger local economy produce increased economic development in low wage areas, reduce crime, improve infant health and can reduce child abuse and teen pregnancy. So the economic benefits and the spillover benefits really abound, and workers in a central and Frontline jobs struggle to get by on current wages. When we look at the current data, we see that those who would benefit most from a local wage ordinance. According to American Community Survey and a study from the Brookings Institution are those in essential jobs like bus drivers, early childcare workers, teachers and construction workers. These according to the economic data are the are the sectors with the most low wage jobs in Fort Collins and these also happened to be the sectors that have recently seen a severe worker shortage as you know, I'm sure has been spoken about. And Fort Collins really can't compete with regional labor markets in cities like Denver in order to fill gaps in critical services without providing a dignified local wage standard. I like to think about it as a condiment as an economist is kind of like why would I drive a bus in Fort Collins where the rent is just about as high as it is in Denver, if my wage is going to be about $5, higher in Denver. So CFI also analyzed some poems data on minimum wage earners living in areas directly around Fort Collins this week, and we found that the majority of these workers are above the age of 25, and 35% of the workers earning less than $2.50 in the area, or above three years old. So these are working adults, many of whom are supporting families and children. Yet, nearly 60% of all these workers are living below 200% of the federal poverty line, which really just tells us that most minimum wage workers face severe barriers to paying rent and getting food on the table under the current wage standards. And I think it's important to contextualize here that our social safety net is intended to help families when they're facing unexpected economic hardship, but because you very much,

think so. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Eric corno. I'm a union representative for a United Food and Commercial Workers Local number seven. Here in northern Colorado. We represent over 900 Grocery workers in northern Colorado and 23,000 members in Colorado and Wyoming combined. It worked in the grocery industry for over 30 years and I raised three children. In fact, I work many years here in Fort Collins at the King Soopers on Elizabeth in shields, factory visited today retune saucing with my friends over there. When I was in grocery I started in the non union grocery stores, I was a single parent for a while and it was just tough to break in back then with King Soopers. You had to practically note well, you literally had to know someone to work there. And I can tell you from firsthand experience going from a human not going into union workplace forever changed my family's life. As we were able to with the benefits and an increase wages kind of joined the middle class and it changed our lives a lot, we were able to actually save a little and we were not living paycheck to paycheck quite as much anymore. That's why I personally feel so strongly about increasing the minimum wage here in Fort Collins is a beautiful area with a great university and good industries. But it's expensive to live here now. Very expensive, especially with inflation and really high housing costs. Not as as part of my job I daily engage with workers in northern Colorado in Fort Collins, and I know the struggles that they face. Working with hourly wage. That's why I'm urging you to vote to raise the minimum wage might seem like too much to some of you but the increased will help working families tremendously in ways that only hourly wage earners will understand. I urge the esteemed members of city council not to see us as a handout but a way to reinvest in your community. The research shows that the lowest wage earners reinvest in their communities more. Evidence shows that earning more doesn't lead to savings but spending in our community. That spending means that workers consume at local restaurants shop at local stores to stimulate economic growth and create jobs. A higher meaning One wage also means that working families have a chance to continue to live in Fort Collins not be priced out and have to leave the communities they love.

I have 30 more seconds.

Oh, do I? Oh, that's I heard the beep before. Okay, cool finish. I also want to add that I wish the city council would have a broader opportunity to understand the extraordinary needs of the workforce by engaging earlier in the stakeholder process with labor leaders and workers themselves. But we're here now in the city council has a historic opportunity to do the right thing and vote to increase the minimum wage, and I urge you to do so thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it.

Excuse me. Thank you. Next up, we have Madeline Amanda. And after that we have Charlie Williamson.

Hi, everyone, my name is Madeline. And I am a young person in Fort Collins and someone who hopes to stay here too. I am very early in my career. And I'm looking at opportunities. And one thing that comes to mind is just what's a lot in a lot of people's minds just how expensive it's getting to be to live here. And so we had a lot of college students and other community members show up here a couple weeks ago talking about u plus two. And I think that these issues are inextricably linked about how there needs to be some kind of the floor needs to raise in terms of how we're able to manage living in in the post for I guess we're still in the middle of a pandemic. And so I think that there's a necessity for structural or infrastructure around keeping things livable, especially in this age where we are still recovering from pandemic times and the wave of economic downturn and how minimum folks working minimum wage were those who were keeping, keeping us alive in quarantine. So I think that to honor that work and to make their lives more sustainable. Raising the minimum wage is just a no brainer. And so. And with that, too, I think the minimum wage, I think when my mind goes there, I think of jobs, or you might be facing a lot of instability still. So the minimum wage amount as we're looking ahead, accounting for inflation is very important. As we look two years like 2027, how much is that number going to be sustainable, even accounting for inflation over the next few years. So having that number be something where people have good quality of life, they're not just going from month to month, but they have the opportunity to take vacations and just have you know, quality of life that we all hope for. Rather than it being just the bare minimum. But offering people not only the opportunity to survive, but thrive here, which I I love poor calm so much for is that it's a great place for people to live, and a great place for people to hopefully stay. So thank you.

Thank you very much, Charlie. Charlie, was Charlie. Charlie's supposed to be in person, not here. Okay. Adam Eccleston. And then carry

city council members out of Mapleson district two. I'm here tonight to speak on pausing the minimum wage increase. There's multiple studies that show that the fat as the faster you raise minimum wage, the faster you push industries to automate. And with the evolution of AI. There's reports and studies that show that we're looking between 20 and 75 million jobs potentially transition from person to AI and automation. The faster you increase minimum wage, the faster you push that there's researches and reports to show that additionally, raising minimum wage from talking to a lot of small business owners would to compensate which shift a lot of their employees have hard time. And then a lot of employees because they're on social systems at the state and federal level that won't be caught up to our minimum wage standards, or they put them at risk of losing their benefits from the state or federal level. Because we're at a higher minimum wage than state and federal. So there's a couple of issues that unintended consequences with raising minimum wage as fast as we're you're proposing Additionally, you know, minimum wage gets construed as a political livable wage, where minimum wage is a starting point. And it's not livable wage. And those that are working on minimum minimum wage, that aren't young, that aren't just getting started in careers, but more established, there are resources to help them compensate with that as they develop the skills to be able to afford or have a benefit of making minimum wage. So I think that as faster we're moving on raising minimum wage, the unintended consequences of pushing to automation and AI, pose a real threat to a lot of low income earners. Also, the increases in costs passed down won't be to the low income workers because they can't live here. Anyways, he'll be to the teachers and police officers and and middle income earners. So that will have to burden that cause with additional costs of coffee and groceries and retail purchases here locally. And those will end up bearing that the majority of that burden. So I encourage you to pause and not move forward with the increased minimum wage.

Thank you very much. Next.

Hello, council members and Mayor, my name is Cory Kaiser, I live in district two, I'm here to speak in favor of increasing the minimum wage. We've heard a few people speak in favor of it already tonight. I think it's really important. The costs of living and inflation housing have gone up a lot faster than wages have. And we need to be doing what we can to help keep up and to help our lowest earners keep up with the rising costs. A lot of people have concerns, including the fact or the idea that increasing minimum wage will lead to having to cut back on workers hours or lay people off. That's not the case. Businesses don't hire people because they have extra money laying around they hire people because they need the labor and in by putting more money in the hands of the workers who are put then putting that back into the community. It also creates more of a demand for jobs politically. I also just like to say that we need this is something that we need to do now. Prices have gone up exponentially recently. Everyone's seen it just being going to the grocery store costs of Brent etc. We really need to be doing everything that we can to be putting money back into the hands of the workers and making sure that this is the community that people can live in, and that the people who work here can also live here. Thank you. Thank you Next.

Hi, good evening. My name is Lauren storbie. I am a business owner here in Fort Collins. And first and foremost, I just want to say thank you for all of your time, your discussions, your emails, or phone calls and doing what you do for our community. So thank you, I am going to be speaking on behalf of the business community, most importantly, the hospitality sector, our largest sector here in Northern Colorado, and also the small business community in general that supports our local economy, right, we are built on small businesses. Now secondly, I want everyone to understand I am all for paying people well, and many employers here in Fort Collins would agree that we do people well, we pay people so well that we are paying our employees more than what we are paying ourselves. And when we have talked about wage compression in the past, it is happening now we have kitchen managers that I am more than willing to pay because they are worth it $45,000 a year. And we are making nearly half of that taking that home as a single family that has a mortgage that is invested in our community, right? We have a business, we're opening another business. I'm an SBDC, consultant for restaurants as well. So there's a lot of restaurant owners that are not willing to come and stand and speak and share their voice. But it is happening. Now, since the beginning, we've talked about what is the problem we're trying to solve and who are we trying to help? And it's been really hard to get a straight answer as far as what is the problem? It seems that it's housing affordability, its affordability in our community, raising the minimum wage is going to directly affect multiple sectors, prices are gonna go up. And I know that's hard to grasp. But that is the reality. That is what is happening in our business. You're seeing it across the board in all sectors, child care, education, nonprofits, they're all of our expenses are increasing, and we just can't keep up. But what we do is we raise our prices. In our business, we have raised our prices 30% Over the last year, and we have customers paying anywhere from 18 to $22, an hour for a sandwich bag of chips and a cookie, or I'm sorry, and a soda. Do we want to see $25 for a meal and argue, if you vote for this, are you willing to take responsibility for that, because that is exactly where we're headed. Now, in order for restaurants to maintain profitability, we need to stay at 30% of our wages. Wages are our biggest expense. So again, this is going to be a direct reflection of increased prices. Just a heads up. Let's see, we will be taking away team perks, we will be taking away team building experiences in order to accommodate a minimum wage increase. Thank you. Thank you very much, John.

All right. Good evening, members of the local Chamber of Commerce. I'm here today to discuss the possible negative impacts of broad drastic minimum wage increase on the restaurant industry. As we all know, we live in a cause and effect world if one thing goes up, the other thing goes up. So we end up back where we started. While many people argue that an increase in the minimum wage will benefit workers and improve their standard of living. It's important to recognize that that this isn't always the case. In fact, the industries like restaurants, a drastic minimum wage increase could have detrimental effects on both the business and their workers. As we all know, the restaurant industry is one that operates on a very thin margin. Food and Beverage costs, rent and other fixed expenses can add up quickly, leaving owners with little room to make a profit. A drastic minimum wage increase can be the final straw that breaks the camel's back, resulting in many small and medium size restaurants going under. going under. This would not only impact owners and their families but also the many workers who rely on these businesses for their livelihoods. With fewer restaurants, there would be fewer jobs available, leading to higher unemployment rates and a decrease in the quality of life for many people. Furthermore, a drastic minimum wage increase could also lead to higher menu prices and decreased customer volumes. This in turn could lead to a decrease in quality of food and service, which could never negatively impact the overall dining experience for customers. In conclusion, while raising the minimum wage sounds well intentioned, it's important to consider the impact it could have on industries like restaurants. I also run a nonprofit for veterans that would detrimentally impact us as well. I lost it now. Let's see. Consider it could have industries like restaurants without a careful planning and consideration, a drastic increase could have dire consequences for small and medium sized businesses and their workers. Rather than focus on a broad minimum wage increase, we should work together to find solutions that benefit workers and businesses alike. Let's talk about his sales tax increase. The city already has a city run, internet and everything else we have, why can't we invest and make the community help together as a sales tax increase to pay for affordable housing that's run by the city. There's there's so many opportunities out there for us to do things like that. We already have internet. Some sectors definitely need a race, not saying they don't. Why should a teacher across the street from me literally make $15 An hour and he has a master's degree. But I have 16 year old hostesses making just as much as him. Some industries need it, but not every industry needs it. I've got employees making over $38 an hour. Teachers make 15 $16 an hour. Thank you for your time. Have a wonderful evening.

Thank you, Teresa. We have remote. Hello, can you hear me? Okay? Yes.

Wonderful. Good evening City Council. My name is Teresa Hadlow. I am a retired member of our United States Air Force and also a member of our northern Colorado community. I would like to take a brief moment to read a statement on behalf of the northern Colorado faith based organizational committee. Have together Colorado. Together Colorado is a statewide, nonpartisan, multiracial, multi faith community organization that unlocks the power of people to transform their communities through community organizing, grounded in our faith and democratic traditions. Were joined together as 220 member clergy, congregations, and schools to address the specific needs of the local community and resolve issues at local, state and national levels. We press for social justice, action, and concrete systematic change. Every worker, regardless of where they come from, or what they look like, deserves a living wage that allows them to support their families. Raising the minimum wage is justified based on moral, social and economic grounds. People want to build roots in Fort Collins, but workers in many areas across the city are not supported with appropriate wages and cannot live where they work. We believe that the objective to boost income will improve the welfare of workers, thereby reducing inequality and promoting social inclusiveness. We offer our testimony in favor of passage of the ordinance before the Fort Collins City Council. local minimum wage laws have proven to be effective and manageable for businesses big and small, better paid employees tend to be more motivated, leading to higher productivity and better job performance. Additionally, when workers have a stable income, they are less likely to switch jobs frequently, which saves businesses time and resources associated with recruiting and training new employees. increasing the minimum wage has been shown to stimulate the economy because it drives consumer spending and creates jobs. While recent analysis found that minimum wage policies enacted between 2012 and 2021 led to a 7.6 billion in additional annual economic output. As city council members, you have the ability to positively affect the lives of our entire community. By voting yes to the minimum wage ordinance, the northern Colorado faith based organizing committee of together Colorado respectfully requests that you support this moral imperative. Thank you so much for your time this evening. Thank you see you.

Next up Damn.

Yes. Good evening, city council. My name is Anne Hutchinson. I'm President CEO of the Fort Collins area Chamber. I'm also a resident of District Six for miscellaneous comments tonight. The first is around minimum wage. We've been highly engaged in this conversation since day one. We've spent time talking to small businesses, large businesses, not for profits, your government partners and more. We're strongly encouraging you to postpone indefinitely this conversation. We don't believe it's the role of local government. We believe that employers should have a direct decision making process relative to their employees. And I'd like to share with you some comments shared with me by one of our local not for profits. She notes that if the city of Fort Collins opts in to force wage increases on their timeline, rather than allow organizations to implement their own compensation adjustments as they're able, it has a very real ability to decrease the community services that individuals and families who make minimum wage rely on. Many organizations already have a difficult time staying fully staffed, given the tight labor, market and nature of the business. Couple that with their mission as a not for profit to provide access to the families with the greatest need and the fact that staffing makes up their largest budget line item. an ordinance like this would likely force program consolidation and in turn decrease the number of kids they can serve in Fort Collins and across the community. I hope that you'll keep all of our businesses not for profit for profit and government in mind as you're making decisions on minimum wage tonight. Separately, you already know that we still stand opposed to actions on 1041. We believe that any of the projects that would be subject to those regulations are already highly highly regulated. We don't believe your water Aqua adequacy conversation is ready for primetime. You've not even had a work session on that topic. Is it really time? And then the last thing I'd like to do is to offer a note of thanks. The chamber has been Hi We focused on building the Civic muscle of our community helping our community members learn how to share their voice. And I've had the great pleasure of interacting with three of your leaders in just the last week around that building of muscle. A special thank you to Mayor Pro Tem Francis for hosting the How to testify experience on Monday. Thank you to Mayor Arndt and manager DiMartino for starting a conversation about a community event that may also help us to grow that ability to talk to each other in regular conversation. And a special thank you to Councilmember peel. I was on the everywhere every time train and every time I turned around, there was councilmember peel talking to community and engaging. I appreciate what you all thank you.

Thank you, Christina.

Good evening. My name is Kristin ALM. My family moved to Fort Collins, and

can you pull the mic dump

in 1955. And I graduated from Fort Collins high school, I went out to California for a while I've been back for over 30 years now. And in that time, when I was in California became a psychiatric technician. And I moved back to Fort Collins, which is where my family lived. My father had a business here. I went out to get a job to support the four children, I brought back from California with me and discovered that the wage wasn't anywhere near what I made in California. They didn't have Psychiatric Technicians in this area, they said I would have to move to Pueblo, which I wasn't willing to do. So I work jobs than I could in hospitals. I've worked the psych unit over in NCMC, working with people who had brand new clothes, brain injuries and doing jobs like that I worked at Catholic Charities different places. But with four children and being a single mother, I could barely afford to, I always struggled to pay the rent, keep up with my car, the maintenance on it, the gas to get back and forth to NCMC to buy my children clothes, to be able to put gas in my car to put food on my table, I relied on food stamps, I really did. And you know, because of the fact that I've done so much volunteer work in Fort Collins, you know, like I would go in one day and pick up my food stamps. And the next day we'd go in and stand need to be buzzed back, because I sit on the Community Action Board or something with random macro back in those days, she was the director of that program. So I feel like I was able to salvage my pride and my integrity by doing volunteer work in things that I believed in. And so I would like to urge all of you here tonight to think about the single mothers think about the children, what they what their needs are. And I understand it's a very complex issue. You know, listening to the people who have small, small businesses themselves, I realized it's going to be a tough one. But I hope that you vote on the side of single mothers and children. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next up we have Jennifer Brooks remotely

Hello Yes. Great. We can hear you Jennifer please go ahead

You're fading in and out. Can you try again? Mary She just dropped off the call. Okay. If she comes back on just signal me and we'll come back to her. Okay. Adam, are you

good evening. My name is Adam Vander Sandy and I operate five locally owned restaurants in Fort Collins. I'm here today to speak in opposition of the proposed local minimum wage. I believe the proposal is coming from a place of good but is the wrong moment in time and I believe that will do more harm than good. The cost of doing business and the cost of living are all time highs. We feel it when we go to the grocery store. We pump our gas we certainly feel it when we pay for housing and childcare. On the business side, we've been faced with new expenses such as sick pay, Family Tax, pandemic debt, and our cost of goods and labor have steadily risen every month since the past Demmick businesses have little to no option remaining, but to pass on those expenses through pricing. We're afraid that this will cause even more inflation in our community. And we'll put all small businesses and citizens at a disadvantage to our neighboring communities. Here's an example that my company would face, the proposed options will add at least $3 An hour equivalent to a minimum 22% Increase the labor. To put that in dollars for everyone, that's over $10,000 a month for each of my full service restaurants, and well over $5,000 a month for quick service restaurants. And that's before we adjust for wage compression. And we've been fighting that for five years, it takes about six months each year to take care of our skilled workers. Yes, we can translate this expense to consumer. But why would we and how would we and families can travel five miles down the road from Austin's on harmony to Loveland, Windsor, or Timnath to save the 10 to 20% increase we'll have to pass on.

Fort Collins does not have a professional sports team. They don't have an international airport. But the proposed minimum wage would put us at one of the highest minimum wages in the country. It's going to put our small business community in peril. The approach to minimum wage needs to be done at regional, at least at a regional. We're putting ourselves at a distinct disadvantage for everybody in our town, we're going to have businesses across from each other, they're going to have different sets of rules. For these reasons, I'm opposing a local minimum wage at this moment. And I kindly asked you to consider voting now. I thank you all for your time, and for your service to our community. I hope you guys have a great evening. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, Eric Eric Solon citizen in Fort Collins, speaking to you tonight on your consent agenda item seven, which is an expansion of connection services into a new territory outside the corporate limits of the city of Fort Collins. And, you know, quite honestly, the only way I can really approach this, the subject is to say, there are people in town that must consider this council to be composed of a bunch of nincompoops. Those people being those people responsible for bringing item seven onto the agenda, authoring. And for one thing, there's nothing resembling a business plan or a cost benefit analysis for you to make decisions on for another. There's nothing indicating where the county contribution of revenue you're expected to appropriate is coming from that general fund contribution that is the taxpayer going for what you've got here, guys, in the simplest terms I can boil it down to is an enterprise that is losing money. Big time. A river of red ink is far out on the horizon, as you can see, known about this for years on its existing service territory and say, oh, let's expand our service Terry, why so lose even more money? This is beyond the pale. It's absolutely absurd. So I will go back to I say I think that the people running connection and the city manager have been incredibly dishonest with you throughout this entire term of this council on this subject as dishonest as the connection technician who put his foot through the ceiling of our house when he was installing service at our house and I came up with a cock and bull story about how his foot slipped off the ledge there was no village nearby. Why wouldn't Eli believe that city manager previous city manager director of connection all been lying to you this is an absolute train wreck financially did not have to be this way. Certainly am myself and other people have been trying to avoid the worst. But passing item seven here this evening and I need your you know sock puppet. Rubber Stamp brigade style typical of the Fort Collins City Council. Nothing more than guarantee a loss of more money that's gonna have to be backfield by electric utility ratepayers. $100 million minimum guys over the next many years. Now think about that in consideration to what you've heard earlier from people talking about the high cost of living here. This is absolutely absurd, and the fact that it appears on your agenda item really does reinforce the conclusion that I drew regarding how some people I really do consider the competence of people on this Council.

Thank you. Next up are

i Good evening, Mr. B. Miller, and I live in 805 to five. Thanks for listening to us today. I'm here representing our nonprofit Isaac of Northern Colorado, which is also an area nonprofit. And we're here to speak in favor of increasing the minimum wage in Fort Collins. We also have to pay our workers with an Isaac but we pay them above the minimum wage because we feel the minimum wage wage really is a poverty wage relative to cost of living here. Apparently, you have to work an hour and a half to buy a sandwich in Fort Collins if you work at minimum wage, and that's not okay. We're not just talking about 1516 year old hostesses. We're talking about workers across all of the sectors of our economy. In fact, Workforce Development Centers talk to us about how hard it is to get people in elder care, health care construction, because of wages. And I think we have a lot of workers working with an enormous amount of integrity and dignity. But the wage that they're being paid does not honor their hard work and their dignity. We all know what $13.60 buys us right now, in terms of rent, childcare, groceries, gas, just not very much. My colleague, Alberto is going to speak later, much more articulately than I can about 75 workers that he's spoken with. He's worked to have a sign on letter, it just literally the last 20 hours. By morning 75 workers had signed on, there'd be a lot more workers than that, but they didn't really feel that anyone reached out to them or that they were engaged in this process. So when they heard they jumped and said, Please We beg of you go to council and talk about the minimum wage. They're also not here because they're working right now. Many of them work a second shift, they go to dinner, and grab a quick bite and go into their second job. And a lot of them were scared to talk today about half of the people that signed on to our letter that Alberto has in hand and would love to hand to you. So they'd like to redact their name because they're worried about worker, employer intimidation. We've also spoken to a lot of CSU students who graduated, they just graduated. And like isn't for Collins, amazing. Don't you want to stay here. And so many of them said, I'm moving back to Denver, where my parents are, because I just can't afford to be here. So I think it's an issue of brain drain that we're experiencing. Also. I know it's a complex issue. We also work with tons of small business owners. But the point is if you know, businesses are saying they can't afford to stay here, but our workers generally can't afford to stay here and they are leaving. I don't think there's ever been a great time when the Business Committee says let's raise the minimum wage. That's not how labor politics work and we all know it. There is no perfect time. But we are struggling as a community and we have a chance to be a leader in our region. And I think that is how our region will raise their minimum wage. And I just want us to take advantage of this amazing opportunity that we have to make a difference for our community right now. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up other than Daniela?

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Like many people I have worked two jobs simultaneously because the salary is not enough

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it is not enough to pay for food. It is not enough to wear clothes. It is not enough. have to pay for housing. It is not enough to pay for transportation. It is not enough just to have fun.

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aside would be a talk about vacations on the beach in the middle of a hotel or food in restaurants. It would be very difficult with the salaries we have.

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I'm not here to give any kind of pity or compassion I'm asking that you that we need you to vote in favor of increasing income. I'm asking you to also look for the well being of the working community

if the net loss of apples but as someone that loves glasses and are familiar with become mature three I suppose your principal the users can lock with Amazon as a familiar or get the number of skills and talents that are hard coded as novelist but at that location necessitates having two

jobs to be able to meet family expenses involves many risks and the main one is that we don't take care of our family because we have to be absent working double shifts to give them what they need to live.

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parents are losing the best years of our children due to the fact that we have to work two jobs one it's just not enough

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And let's not talk about the mental health problems there are families now faced due to the absence of their parents, the little time we can dedicate to them the frustration we feel and not being able to meet basic needs.

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Nobody lives with a minimum wage. Inflation has been overwhelming. Today we have to go to the supermarket and we no longer buy half of what we used to buy before get Amazon

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one make you see your need the salary must rise since the work that we provide will always be more than what we receive and payment

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support this proposal did not leave us alone in this journey. We are your neighbors. Were your co workers. We are the community of Fort Collins.

And as you think What do most western prisoners can replace in terms of Sillas

Thank you. I have a poll here from the 90 people that we are representing and I will leave this with you. Thank you boys lucky. Thank you. Everything is here Daniela

Good evening, everybody. My name is Jamie Dimon. Sally's and I represent Alyansa Norco, bipoc. Alliance and just our community. And I'm here today to encourage you all to vote yes to increase minimum wage in Fort Collins. As we all know, $13.65 is not a livable wage, especially in a city like Fort Collins. I'm currently in Fort Collins a livable wage for a single adult working full time is estimated to be $18.92. And even at this wage, we know that we can't live comfortably. So what does this mean for our families? I know that one of the concerns is that businesses are afraid that this would dry up inside of Fort Collins, but I don't think this will be the case. Community members here in Fort Collins are leaving Fort Collins to find sustainable living wages Elsewheres. In this article and research study, I found it was mentioned that higher wages will actually work in favor of businesses by making it easier to not only recruit but to retain their employees, hopefully, hopefully reducing turnover rates, and additional Yano that higher wages will help reduce poverty and financial insecurities. A lot of the issues that we're currently faces organization stem from this issue. These wages do not allow unlimited accessibility and housing in our communities. Even here in currently in pooter Valley people are getting evicted from the mobile home park. Being able to provide livable wages can help prevent this issue. As a recent CSU graduate, graduate Navigating through the work for us really puts into perspective what a livable wage looks like. And what I am even up against, even with a degree, we keep finding ourselves having these similar conversations to the various other communities. And it does not help if we don't advocate for people to be able to live comfortably. I think it's safe to assume that everybody's sitting up there today. You guys all probably have a comfortable salary and live fairly comfortably. So I asked you to think about people like me, and people in our community that would benefit from a livable wage. I think what you're proposing is great. And I think that's a great start. And I think there's a lot of stuff to work on. And I hope that you vote yes to increase the minimum wage in Fort Collins. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next up boss kind of remotely.

Hi, this is Russell, if

you hear me. Yeah, go ahead. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you, counsel. And I Ruskin if I'm the chair of Land Conservation Stewardship board speaking on their behalf. And first I wanted to say thank you for passing on first reading a few weeks ago, the 1041 regulations. And thank you also for discussing the option or commitment to having a work session about further regulations and ways that the city can protect the environment and health and safety of its public. And I'm just here tonight to encourage you to pass the regulations that are before you as you see them including the I believe the staffs proposed amendments seem to be compatible with Land Conservation Stewardship board's direction, and also further encourage you to continue to look at other options for increasing the regulatory ability of the city with respect to 1041, including potentially expanding the area to include the pooter heritage area as a region of state interest. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you very much, David around remotely.

Good evening, my name is David root district or resident and the executive director of Homer Alliance. Sorry.

I mispronounced your name and I apologize.

Oh, that's no big deal. Everybody, mispronounces it. It's spelled wrong. Thank you. Thank you to the mayor and members of city council for your work. I am speaking to express my support for raising the minimum wage in Fort Collins. We've heard many arguments for and against this proposal tonight, and I'm sure you've heard many others, but I will focus on two key points, both based on my personal experience. First in the context of the organization homered alliance for which I serve as executive director. While people generally speaking might not think of nonprofit organizations like homered Alliance as small businesses in the traditional sense, that is exactly what we are a corporation that employs between 35 to 50 and 50. Individuals individuals with a wide range of responsibilities and experiences who collectively and thanks to wages earned at home or Alliance are significant significant contributors to our local economy. Were years ago after extensive research and the potential ramifications, both negative and positive of the move homered Alliance and leadership staff and board of directors implemented living wage policy, a promise that by the start of 2022, all of them were Alliance employees would make a minimum of $45,000 per year or about $21.75 per hour. I'm proud to say that we have achieved that goal. And more importantly, I'm proud to say that the decision has not jeopardized the financial viability of our organization. Rather it has had the opposite effect. It has improved employee satisfaction, reduced turnover and the costs associated with that turnover and enhanced productivity. Second, as it pertains to people experiencing homelessness, and those who are precariously housed we see at home and alliance in the Murphy center firsthand every day that a painting a job in Fort Collins is rarely enough on its own for a person to escape or avoid homelessness. In fact, for many of the people we serve, obtaining a job is actually a hindrance to securing housing or moving forward with their lives. Instead, it is a 40 per app 40 hour per week obligation that pays enough maybe to buy food and meet some basic needs. But nowhere near enough to save money pay for a security deposit or pay for ongoing and fast rising rents. When I moved here in 22,009, we were rapidly becoming we were rapidly becoming a community where it was difficult to to live and work. Now, 14 years later, we are there. It is virtually impossible for many people in many jobs in Fort Collins to work and live in our great city. Is that really the community we want to be? I believe that we can and must do better. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And I just got a message that Jennifer Brooks who had accidentally dropped off before is now available remotely. Is that true?

Hello, Mayor and councilmembers

Hi Jennifer, go ahead.

Thank you name's Jennifer Brooks from

sorry, we're gonna do Jennifer first and then we'll get back to you.

Thank you. My name is Jennifer Brooks from district five. I've been at Fort Collins residents since 1997. And remember when u plus two was put in place. At the time, the ordinance seemed like a reasonable solution to what some community members saw as a developing problem. And then u plus two has had significant unintended consequences without actually resolving the issues it initially set out to solve. This fact was evidenced in the city council's rental market report of 2019. I invite everyone listening to visit the city's webpage to review this report, which has so far not been addressed. We have a housing crisis in our city that is impacting students who are a significant part of our local economy. This crisis also impacts the majority of violators who are actually non how students and are quite often households with children, or what was recently referred to as precariously housed. The current ordinance is discriminatory. And the city has been made aware of this fact on multiple occasions. By failing to take action, the city is opening itself up to potential litigation related to housing discrimination. Knowing of this potential risk to the city and the costs that would come with litigation. I'm here this evening to ask the City Council to take the step to immediately end enforcement of the current year plus two ordinances. This will allow council to put in place new, thoughtful and legal guidelines on the occupancy of rentals. There's precedent for this type of decision and municipalities across the country where outdated laws and codes are no longer enforced. I urge the Council to take this action now. We've had other people here tonight who have been talking about minimum wage. And I was really struck by our first speaker who is providing care or has provided care to our parents and our grandparents. And she may have to leave Fort Collins. But it's not because of the minimum wage is because of the cost of our housing. Up plus two has increased costs by immediately ending enforcement of u plus two. It's easy. It's free. It's immediate. People are looking for housing right now. The students aren't here they just finished finals. Many of them have gone home for the summer. They will be back they need a place to live. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Who's Who's here up next. Come on up. Sorry about the miscommunication there. Go ahead.

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is the musona parabola Good afternoon my name is Christmas customer and I'm here to support the increase of the minimum wage these are some of the reflections that I want to bring to you

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I will This is not verbatim just gonna give you the concept of what he shared was doing as he engages with other workers and he works with a nonprofits and is able to get all the feedback from them. He is quite familiar with those who work on roofs literally yes would be I guess milk industry and a lot of them are afraid of many times give voice to their concerns for the worry that there would be some sort of actions taken against them

okay thank you very much. Maria.

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Good evening, everyone seems just kind of a little shocking to me that we're still discussing racing the minimum wage

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we all know that the cost of living has gone up. We heard I can scooch it over No. You.

Sorry, little flux here on Governor saying how the increase was an 8.5%. But to me, the reality of it is much higher number.

Just use it as you need to move forward. But Patreon is a tambien para la comunidad trabajar.

I understand this as a strong impact for business owner and for workers as well. But it

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and I do understand that business owners me and business owner myself have been recipients of some help for taxes, grants and other programs. But this is not the case for the workers.

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involved in an organization related to the food bank. We're constantly getting phone calls, trying to for people trying to get information or work and they go to get some help in terms of groceries. And the Latino community has a different type of diet usually from what the the food that is being offered at this places.

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Yeah. So now just let you know that it's a great challenge that we are facing. Seems like the buying power has gone up generally. But those families that are having often from our minority are less fortunate or not at par with this with this situation.

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And we are layer of the community that are taking care of jobs are basic and very important. Were there at night, you don't see us but we're doing the cleaning. Were up on the roofs, we are taking care of basic, important jobs for the community. Thank you.

Thank you very much, though Roberts remotely. Hi.

Thanks very much for hearing all of us, I want to join in support of raising the minimum wage, which I believe, you know, in concert with everything that others have been saying will help make Fort Collins a place where all workers have the opportunity to build wealth invests in the communities, regardless of background, people want to build roots in Fort Collins. But workers in many areas across the city are not supported with appropriate wages, and it resulted resulting in being forced out of the community. Everyone loses when this happens, Coloradans should not be forced out of the communities they've become a part of, and love, because we just fail to keep up with rents and living costs. And at the same time, also preventing people from, you know, coming coming here I have family members who I want to live close to who are having trouble finding jobs that will support them, given their status, and I between education and disability. And I really want them to be able to be here and support themselves. And I don't think the living wage currently will make that happen. I also want to say that I don't think we can leave businesses to dictate wage or other economic policies. There's certainly some good employers who offer fair pay. I know that those are in our community. And as a consumer, I seek those out, I want to highlight that to that, as a local consumer who is likely to be making over minimum wage, I always am looking to support those businesses that I know are supporting their workers. And I avoid those that aren't and I think there's many like the in that camp. But in general, businesses will seek to maximize maximize profits rather than ensure workers earn a living wage. That's why labor standards like the minimum wage exist, so workers aren't compelled to work for exploitative wages. The state's minimum wage of 1365 does not meet the needs of people in Fort Collins, raising the minimum wage puts businesses on the same playing field, avoiding competitive disadvantages and reducing employee turnover and saving costs. That's a really big one, recruitment, training, staffing, a lot of people switching jobs, you know, moving from place to place because they can't support themselves. And ultimately, that causing larger costs, you know, better pay better benefits longer. You have employees who are there and are happy and ultimately reducing costs and issues. Finally, to address the things someone brought up earlier about automation, as someone who works in tech, I feel like automation is going to have an impact regardless of minimum wage, you know, certain jobs performed by workers might be automated to increase efficiency. And honestly, some of them might be great, you know, reducing dangerous jobs. That could be better done by machine. But regardless, there's always going to be jobs that need to be done by people require that human connection. A lot of them are these lower paying jobs. And regardless, whatever the future holds, American workers should be paid enough to meet their basic sorry,

excuse me, that was the red light.

Great, thank you.

Thank you so much. dread. Good evening,

Mayor City Council. Thank you for all you do for our city. My name is Gerard Boyle and my partners and I own two restaurants in For Collins, I don't have any studies to quote just 30 years in business in the restaurant Barbary business and some of that experience, as we've seen, minimum wage go up over the last three decades at the state level. And I think the numbers that I looked at and calculated for our businesses, each restaurant, it would be over $150,000 for one in wage increases and almost $250,000 in the other. Just on an increase in minimum wage, we don't pay our full minimum wage employees anywhere close to that, because the market doesn't dictate that anymore. We have to pay we are paying 2021 $22 an hour for our line cooks, we're paying 1819 and 20. For our dish machine operators, they're valuable employees that we want to keep the people that will have a wage increase from this are the tip credit employees that are our bussers, our servers and our bartenders. I don't know if we can figure out how to offset the $100,000 of wage increases in our businesses. Aside from making menu prices increases, which in turn, affect inflation, and then the whole cycle continues. I started as a minimum wage worker, I understand what it's like to rely on that check and tips. For us. We are located one of our restaurants is located in Southeast Fort Collins. So right across the highway, we have Timnath Windsor, Loveland. And those restaurants will not be raising their prices because they won't have this challenge. We do not have an issue with staffing. This will not increase or take care of a staffing issue that we don't see at our restaurants. I'm not saying it doesn't exist in our city. The other I guess one other thing to think about is we aren't just going to see your costs and increase wages. But there's other expenses we have that are tied to our payroll. So for example, our insurance, that is dictated some of our insurances dictated on what is your payroll, that payroll goes up automatically. Now, we have added a cost for insurance, our sick pay expenses will also go up because that is tied to our labor. I think, you know, an increased cost of living is certainly a reality and Fort Collins, you've got a tough decision to make. I urge you not to vote for a minimum wage increase, as I think it would continue the cycle of inflation. Thank you