I suppose I should be grateful that Mayor Ken Miyagashima engineered a compromise in which the City Council won't immediately eviscerate the petition-mandated ordinance it enacted to raise the minimum wage.
But I'm still troubled.
I'm troubled by a City Councilor who says she canceled her newspaper subscription when she got elected, so as not to be influenced. This attitude reminds me of certain religious proselytizers who used to stop and chat while I gardened. They frequently recommended books to me, but when I once recommended one to them, they replied, “Oh, no. We already know the truth.”
If I were a City Councilor I'd be interested in what others had to say, particularly others whose views I didn't generally share. I'd scan “Sound Off” daily.
I'm troubled by a City Councilor who takes very questionable positions and, when questioned, doesn't respond to the substance of the question but complains he's being threatened and cloaks himself in inspirational quotations.
Does it bother you that you're the major advocate for violating the City Charter to mute the minimum wage hike, when your wife's job is to lobby government officials for the Restaurant Association, which desperately wants to keep the minimum wage down?
“George Washington said, 'It's better to be alone than in bad company.'”
I think the councilor drew the distinction that his wife lobbied state legislators – and presumably had nothing to do with her employer's op-ed against the minimum wage hike here. Then it surfaced that his wife had been leading a petition drive in Albuquerque regarding tipped wages. So maybe municipalities are part of her job description.
“My only regret is that I have only one life to lose for my country.” (No, he didn't say that. Yet.) I still think he's sincere, though misguided. In his place I'd have a hard time maintaining objectivity, though from uxoriousness, not financial interest. I'd also recognize that voting on a healthy-food issue would undermine public trust.
It troubles me that when a councilor asked if the council might get sued for violating the City Charter, the City Attorney blandly assured him “No.”
Charter says “If there are enough petition signatures, enact the ordinance unchanged or let the people vote.” Councilors, acknowledging a popular majority would vote “Yes”, enacted the ordinance – while laughing up their sleeves about eviscerating it next week.
That Charter language sounds pretty mandatory. But it doesn't say explicitly that we can't immediately repeal the ordinance the people lawfully ordered us to enact.
But does the Charter provision mean anything? It's a way people can bring something to the Council's attention so the Council can use its discretion.
Gathering thousands of signatures seems excessive, for just that. And why does the Charter provision start, “The people shall have the power . . .”?
Arguing the City's position in court might work. Might. But the City Attorney dismisses casually the possibility that a neutral judge might notice how completely the City's action violated the spirit and intent of the Charter, note that even while enacting it the councilors were giggling about repealing, and order some remedy.
Do we want that kind of legal advice for Las Cruces, the kind that ignores serious risk to tell the majority what it wants to hear?
Does Las Cruces want that kind of publicity? A dozen minimum-wage workers suing a council that's playing tricks on its citizens and trying to slither through a possible loophole?
I am grateful to Miyagashima that we may not have to test conflicting legal views in the courts.
But in the long run, he did the anti-$10.10 camp the best favor it could have asked for.
Peter Goodman is a local writer, photographer, and sometime lawyer. He initially moved to Las Cruces in 1969, holds two degrees from NMSU, and moved back here in 2011 with his wonderful wife. This is his most recent Sunday column in the Las Cruces Sun-News. His blog Views from Soledad Canyon contains further information on this subject, as well as other comments and photographs, and past newspaper columns.