Wilmette’s three-member finance committee decided Monday the best way to investigate how Cook County’s minimum wage and paid sick time ordinances could affect Wilmette is to form a subcommittee to do it.
The new working group should comprise as many as seven people, finance committee chairman Dan Sullivan said: residents, business owners and representatives of groups that support or oppose the ordinances. He and fellow committee members Senta Plunkett and Steve Leonard didn’t take a formal vote on the matter, but agreed that the group should focus on getting local views from residents, owners and employees.
“We really want a listening group, a grass-roots group that’s all about Wilmette,” he said. “We’re not going to make this decision based on data research.”
Assistant Village Manager Mike Braiman said Wednesday former village president John Jacoby will chair the new subcommittee. He also said people have until Nov. 30 to put their names in for consideration as subcommittee members by emailing Braiman at [email protected], or [email protected], the address Wilmette dedicated to the ordinance issue.
The finance committee will meet Dec. 4, giving it time to assess and recommend appointments that the board could then act on, he said.
Village staff will ready the committee’s recommendations, along with its mandate for the subcommittee, in time for the full board’s review and possible approval on Dec. 12, Braiman said at the finance committee meeting.
An eventual board decision – on whether to opt back in to the county’s minimum wage or paid sick time ordinances, reversing last June’s decision to opt out – should ideally come before next July, Braiman said. That’s when the next scheduled hike to the county minimum wage is set to take effect, he said.
Finance committee members said the working group should regularly report back to them. The group’s work would probably not begin until early next year, they agreed.
Sullivan said the meeting at Mallinckrodt Center was only the start of a decision making process, adding, “This is an opportunity to hit the reset button. This is not a meeting where we’re going to go back and rehash what was decided. We know everybody is very passionate about this, no matter what side you’re on.”
Instead, he asked people to suggest ways the committee could obey Village President Bob Bielinski’s August directive. Bielinski’s order said the finance committee “is to assemble, analyze and present data relevant to the policy choices, so as to better inform the board.”
Almost two dozen people spoke at the meeting, both for and against the county’s ordinances.
Wilmette residents Betsy Hart and Tom Scanlan said minimum wage requirements hurt young workers just starting out, and potentially force businesses to cut staff. Hart claimed most minimum wage workers were teens or people working second jobs, not full-time workers.
Resident Ben Schmitt said the committee should listen to business owners: “It seems we’re placing a lot of emphasis on resident feedback. To me, one resident’s view doesn’t equal one business’s view. To me, there should be more emphasis on the businesses, and the people paying the wages.”
Residents Marilee Cole and Diana Hackbarth supported a minimum wage increase, saying full-time minimum wage workers in Wilmette can’t make a living at its current level.
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Resident Brian Fabes suggested that the finance committee separate minimum wage and paid sick time data, because “they are very, very different dynamics and have different costs and impacts.” He also said committee or working group members could look at studies done elsewhere in the Chicago region, “and just ask what’s different for Wilmette.”
Wilmette resident Richard Fisher said the committee should decide what its decision criteria would be.
“Is the decision supposed to be for the village as a whole? Is it supposed to be for businesses … I encourage you to look at your goals,” Fisher said.
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