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The City of Longmont will hold a fishbowl discussion on August 14 about the possibility of raising the minimum wage above the current $14.81 minimum wage set by the state of Colorado. The date was determined after Assistant City Manager Sandra Seader addressed the City Council during its meeting on July 8. The Longmont Chamber of Commerce and Longmont Downtown Development Authority (LDDA) is partnering with the city to find businesses and people from specific industries to participate in the discussion.
Seader described the fishbowl technique that will be the basis for the August 14 discussion. “A fishbowl is a very specific facilitation technique uh where there is an outer circle and an inner circle,” she said. “The inner circle engages in kind of a tough or a deep conversation such as what are the pressures around an increased minimum wage.” Seader explained that the outer circle listens in, but individuals can rotate between the inner and outer circles. Representatives from various industries are expected to participate in the discussion, including retail, restaurants, transportation and moving companies, groundskeepers, and daycare providers.
Seader explained that a discussion at the Consortium of Cities prompted the city to schedule this meeting regarding a potential increase to the minimum wage. A new minimum wage took effect on January 1 for Boulder County, which is currently $16.57 per hour. City of Longmont Budget Analyst Sarah Del Valle said that nine percent of the Longmont workforce would be impacted by a minimum wage increase to $16.57, as Boulder implemented at the beginning of this year. Del Valle also explained there are some potential unintended consequences, such as a benefits cliff. She gave an example of a single parent with two kids who earns $24.83 an hour on a full-time schedule and said that household would no longer qualify for SNAP benefits.
Kathy Partridge with Together Colorado spoke in support of a minimum wage increase during the public comment portion. “I want to point out that in addition to the workers, the many low-wage workers who hold up our community with their labor, they are the true philanthropists as they do the work our community needs for not enough money to support themselves and their families, but also those of us who depend in the community on the work of folks,” she said.
Two residents also raised concerns about the potential for small business closure if a minimum wage increase takes effect. John suggested that the minimum wage should only be increased for large, profitable industries. “We saw what happened in unincorporated Boulder County,” he said. “They raised the minimum wage. Several businesses immediately closed. They could not uh increase efficiency and automate fast enough in order to stay in business.”
A resident named Steve referenced the California minimum wage increase for fast food workers. “California is much larger, but there have been about 5,000 fast food restaurants that have closed,” he said. “There's been tens of thousands of fast food workers that are out of work and they've been replaced by machines.”
