City council votes to develop living wage ordinance
Members meet to levy the ordinance,
which would provide a higher wage
for temporary city employees
By Jillian Daley
Oregon Daily Emerald
Yesterday, city council members discussed
a proposal for a Eugene living wage ordi
nance during the first work session held in
Eugene concerning this issue.
The council voted unanimously to devel
op a city living wage ordinance that they will
later decide to pass or reject.
“It’s the quintessential economic develop
ment strategy,” Eugene City Councilor Bon
nie Bettman said during the work session.
Bettman said raising city wages keeps mon
ey in the local economy, which is a sound
strategy for alleviating the current recession.
A living wage law is not a federal standard,
like the minimum wage. It usually focuses al
most solely on full-time city workers.
However, the proposed ordinance would
focus primarily on temporary city workers,
who often receive lower pay. It would also
increase the income of employees of business
that have a contract with the city as well as
employees of businesses that receive signifi
cant financial aid from the city.
During the work session, City Councilor
Nancy Nathanson raised questions about the
proposed ordinance, but eventually support
ed the proposal.
The effort to push the proposal, led chiefly
by the Eugene-Springfield Solidarity Net
work, has been developing for some time.
ESSN organizer Sarah Jacobson said that at
first the group thought the living wage
should be only a few dollars above the mini
mum wage, but as Eugene’s cost of living has
risen, so have ESSN’s standards for their liv
ing wage proposal.
Last August, the Economic Policy Institute’s
500-city study helped provide more impetus
for new legislation. The findings showed that
a one-adult, one-child family has to earn more
than two times the federal poverty level to be
making enough to sustain themselves. Since it
is hard to determine a living wage value, the
EPI compared it to the poverty level of the
adult-child, two-person family.
The EPI’s study listed $11.42 an hour with
health care benefits and $14.28 an hour with
out as an appropriate wage for a one-adult,
one-child family.
The ESSN used these findings to set the
wage standard for the proposed legislation.
However, there are reasons in addition to
the EPI’s study that have inspired the ESSN
and more than 30 other community groups to
support a new initiative.
“There are two issues,” University labor
education instructor Lynn Feekin said. “One,
it’s an issue of fairness, and two, it’s an issue
of accountability around the use of tax dol
lars.” Feekin said that more tax dollars
should support city workers, rather than be
ing poured into city projects.
“It’s very hard to gauge where this is go
ing,” Feekin said. “I assume that there will be
many issues that follow, but at this point
we’re at the beginning of the process.”
The City Council will later setup a hearing
to vote on whether or not to pass the ordinance.
Contactthereporteratjilliandaley@dailyemerald.com.
Senate brief
ASUO Student Senate
hears special requests
The ASUO Student Senate held a meeting
Monday to make more summer financial
transfers and hear special requests from the
Women’s Law Forum, Outlaws, Project
Saferide and the ASUO Women’s Center.
The Women’s Law Forum requested a $162
transfer to buy a new banner to display at
conferences.
The WLF also requested $750 to finance a
program aimed at introducing first-year law
students to the group.
Outlaws — a group representing gay, les
bian, transgender and bisexual law students
— requested $230 to purchase a banner for
their student group.
Saferide requested $15,276 in transfers to
cover payroll expenses. Student groups must
always obtain senate confirmation when
dealing with payroll accounts.
The ASUO Women’s Center requested
$1,122 to send the office coordinator to an in
ternational conference about campus sexual
assault. The Center hopes the skills learned
from the conference will benefit their sexual
assault programs at the University.
The senate granted $715 to cover registra
tion to the conference and airfare.
—Jan Montry
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Adam Jones Emerald
Wheeler Properties, LLC has issued eviction notices to the tenants of the building at East
11th Avenue and Alder Street in order to demolish the building.
Eviction
continued from page 1
which hurts him financially and
emotionally.
“I have a wife that is very sick,
and this is going to make an impact
on our wage earning because she
can’t work,” Sellars said.
Sue McGuire has owned Alder
Street Market, located on 798 East
11th St., for 12 years, and stands to
lose a significant amount of money
because of the timing and short no
tice. McGuire said she had just
bought her liquor licenses and paid
other fees for the month, which
amounts to between $500 and
$1,000, and the fees and licenses
are nontransferable.
“I’m very angry at the way it was
done. It’s a mean-spirited thing to
expect businesses to move in 30
days,” McGuire said.
McGuire plans to fight it. She’s
begun working with a Salem legis
lator to try to raise a bill to length
en the amount of notice for busi
ness owners.
McGuire has made tentative
arrangements for a new location,
but she would not disclose the lo
cation. She said she wanted to
move near campus, as students
are her main clientele.
Students who live in Sigma Nu,
a nearby fraternity, say they will
miss McGuire and Sellars and their
businesses.
“I think everyone is going to miss
Sue,” University student and Sig
ma Nu member Geoff Kessler said.
“She’s been a great person to us.
Even when we don’t have money,
she’ll front it to us.”
Despite the amount of time estab
lishments have been in place and
the friends the business owners
have made, they will have to move
on. Although Sellars and McGuire
have made plans for their new busi
ness locations, the property own
ers’ lack of an explanation for the
evictions and the short notice has
created some bitterness.
“Give me five minutes of four-let
ter words, and that pretty much ex
plains how angry everyone down
here is,” Sellars said.
Wheeler Properties, LLC, could
not be reached for comment, and its
attorney, Standlee Potter, and the
property management company,
Jennings & Co. Property Manage
ment, would not comment.
Contact the reporter
atjilliandaley@dailyemerald.com.
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