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Flash: No Special Berkeley City Council Meeting Tonight Re Minimum Wage

John Caner, CEO Downtown Berkeley Assn.
Thursday August 11, 2016 - 05:32:00 PM

We were just told by Councilmember Capetelli that there will be no Council meeting tonight because of insufficient quorum. He also informed us that the City Clerk brought to his attention that introducing the measure tonight would violate the Good Government Ordinance (Section 2.06.070.E.1) of the City and, possibly the Brown Act. Here is Councilmember Capitelli's statement: 

I strongly believe that we need to raise the minimum wage in Berkeley past its current $11 ($12.53 as of October 1, 2016). We need to help working people and combat wage inequality. In 2015, Council crafted a bold and progressive minimum wage measure that proposed raising the minimum wage to $15. Council voted to further speed up the wage schedule in April of 2016 and let the voters weigh in. Even though our initial proposal was one of the most progressive in the nation, an initiative was circulated to raise it higher. I attempted to broker a compromise to unify our community with the caveat that it needed a supermajority on all points. Unfortunately, at this time, the Mayor, the Vice-Mayor, City Manager and City Attorney are out of town for a special meeting regarding the minimum wage. Other Councilmembers have reservations about whether workers, youth and community-serving nonprofits will benefit from the agreement. Others are concerned about equity regarding health care coverage and sick leave. Additionally, there has been less than 3 hours to review the language from the City Attorney for a measure that will affect the lives of thousands. We ran out of time to do our due diligence and analysis required to pass such a complicated and multi-faceted measure. As a result, we don't believe this is good policy making or democratic. The current Council proposal is amongst the most progressive minimum wage proposals in the entire nation. 

We apologize for the late notice, but we just received this information.