City Council makes no changes to minimum wage ordinance, keeps United stadium plan going

The Albuquerque City Council voted down an update to the city’s minimum wage ordinance Monday night. The council also rejected an appeal that would have impeded the development of a new soccer stadium for New Mexico United.

The 6-3 vote on the minimum wage ordinance came after extensive public comment from food service workers and restaurant owners who were concerned that tipped employee wages could be cut.

The ordinance would have raised the Albuquerque minimum wage from $11.10 to $12 hourly. The prevailing minimum hourly wage that workers are actually paid in Albuquerque is already $12, because that is the state minimum. But the change would have allowed an existing annual cost of living increase built into local law to once again impact Albuquerque workers.

The proposal would have also strengthened enforcement of wage theft violations.

Most of the public input was concerned with an amendment to lower the tipped employee minimum wage from $7.20 to $3 that was proposed by Councilor Renee Grout at the Aug. 5 council meeting.

“Lower income tipped workers should not be forced to subsidize bad business plans, and governments should not support that practice either,” Kate Gerwin, an owner of Albuquerque bar Happy Accidents, told the council. The current structure for hospitality businesses is not effective, Gerwin said, and her business offers tipped employees a base pay of $10 per hour, health insurance and paid leave.

The amendment was not brought back to the floor.

“What started as my intention to try and listen to constituents who did come to me and ask for an amendment to seemingly help find some balance to make sure that the back of the house of a restaurant could get paid better ended up becoming a misrepresentation,” said Councilor Brook Bassan, who also previously supported the proposal. “It’s become political. It’s become front versus back. It’s become left versus right. That wasn’t my intention. I wanted to achieve some kind of balance.”

Councilor Louie Sanchez said he supports raising the city minimum wage to $12 but was concerned about increasing wage theft enforcement on businesses. He believes that the state Department of Workforce Solutions is already effectively addressing wage theft, and he was not satisfied with the city’s plan to do so.

The city has previously taken up two wage theft claims under the existing minimum wage ordinance, said city attorney Lauren Keefe. One was successful at getting workers paid, while the other failed because the business owner declared bankruptcy, she said. In both cases, the city worked with Workforce Solutions.

“We will keep fighting for workers and to raise minimum wage as prices increase so no one gets left behind,” said Mayor Tim Keller in a statement. “We were encouraged to hear many councilors indicate they’d support the bill with adjustments, so we will be bringing this back to the table.”

United stadium scores again

The plan to build a United soccer stadium at Balloon Fiesta Park will move forward as planned after the council denied an appeal of the planning process with an 8-1 vote.

The city’s Environmental Planning Commission unanimously recommended approving a major amendment to the Balloon Fiesta Park site plan to allow developing the stadium there, and a group of neighborhood associations appealed the decision.

The Land Use Hearing Officer found that the EPC’s findings were well-supported, and that the neighborhood associations appeal was not well-founded, with one exception. Traffic mitigation recommendations were not properly considered by the EPC. The LUHO recommended upholding the EPC decision and adding the traffic mitigation recommendations.

This was the second appeal to the Land Use Hearing Officer. After the first appeal, the EPC had to hold another hearing because not all property owners were properly notified, which has been rectified.

In the appeals, residents were concerned with noise pollution, and excess light and traffic from the planned stadium.

The stadium design was refined to mitigate sound and light coming from it because of public concerns, according to a Planning Department memo.