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Lipson: Silva Not Honest About Minimum Wage Votes

Miguel Silva

  In the Aug. 6 Las Cruces Sun-News, Las Cruces city councilor and mayoral candidate Miguel Silva was quoted as saying he voted for the three-tier minimum wage hike adopted by the council. In a KRWG interview, he claimed to have voted for the minimum wage hike "eight of 10 times." This obscures Silva's actual position and actions.

Last June, Silva proposed and voted for an initiative to raise the minimum wage to $8.50 by 2016. This was intended to subvert the larger and more comprehensive minimum wage initiative advanced by NM CAFé. Silva also voted for the original CAFé minimum wage initiative a few months later, but only as part of a plan — openly discussed at the council meeting — to immediately amend the initiative and prevent putting the wage hike on the ballot, for which I and more than a hundred volunteers gathered over 6,000 signatures. This was completely contrary to the letter and spirit of the ballot initiative process in the city charter. 

Quoting the Sun-News editorial at the time, passing the resolution with the intention to amend indicated an effort to "intentionally and deceptively engage in a scheme to subvert the will of the voters."

Unfortunately the scheme worked, and it is correct that Silva ultimately supported the three-tier plan. In a strange twist of events, the council's main minimum wage opponents voted to pass the three-tiered wage hike initiative as a last-ditch alternative to the CAFé proposal. This group included Silva.

Confusing? Yes. But no one should believe Councilor Silva has been a supporter of the effort to establish a meaningful minimum wage in Las Cruces. I support for re-election our Mayor Ken Miyagishima, who concluded that a real raise is called for, an issue taking the country by storm.