"We Are Not Amused" - The Latest On The Clowncil's Attempt To Screw LAX Hotels
By Walter Moore, Chief Economist and Legal Analyst, L.A. Policy Institute.As loyal readers know, City Clowncil enacted an ordinance that singled out a few hotels, in one part of town, and would have required them to pay much higher wages than anyone else.
Those businesses, and others, responded by following the proper legal procedure to let voters decide, at the next election, whether to repeal the law. The Council then had a choice: proceed with the election or repeal the law themselves. They opted for the latter.
Then, however, they immediately turned around and enacted the same law again, only this time they through in an expenditure of $1 million of your money, ostensibly to improve streets near the hotels being singled out to pay higher wages.
Well, the businesses that spent so much time and money to challege the ordinance are not amused. Their lawyer has written a letter to the Clowncil explaining that you cannot circumvent the law on referenda merely by re-enacting the same law after repealing it.
Stay tuned to see what happens next. This could get into some interesting legal and political issues. It may also wake up the business community -- to the extent there's any business community left in this town!
Here's the story from today's Daily News.
P.S. The picture is "Homey The Clown," whose catch-phrase was "Homey don't play that." You really have to watch the skits to get the humor.
Posted by Walter Moore @ 2/10/2007 11:39:00 AM
13 Comments:
Walter,
Is "HOMIE THE CLOWN" the "ALTER EGO" of Bernard Parks ? One can visualize "BITTER BERNIE" walking around wth sock, hitting wayward constituants and saying "HOMIE DON'T PLAY THAT!!" BTW, "HOMIE", "HANDY MAN", and "FIRE MARSHALL BILL" were my favorites from the show, plus the "SPY GIRLS". ....Oh. on the "POTIBURO OF CLOWNS", the business community better get their "PAC" in place for the battle ahead.
FREEDOM AND FREE ENTERPRISE
"RED SPOT OF REASON IN CD 14"
If the hotels didn't like this agreement, they shouldn't have authorized the Chamber to negotiate on the hotels' behalf.
I truly wish the initial referrendum HAD made it to the ballot, 'cause the hotels would've gotten their butts kicked, and they know it.
From the LA Business Journal (on Wednesday):
"...It appears that business’ hand may have been weakened by the results of two polls on the issue conducted in mid-January. One, commissioned and loudly trumpeted by labor, showed 74 percent support for the living wage ordinance.
The other, commissioned by the hotels, was not made public, and there were differing comments on the results. Publicly, hotel consultant Harvey Englander said “our poll did not show that we could not win the campaign.” But privately, one business leader who said he had seen the poll said the results were not favorable for the hotels and that a lot of effort would have to be made to switch many voters’ views.
“The poll results really took away a lot of the leverage that the hotels thought they had gained by placing the referendum on the ballot,” this business leader said. “It meant that when they were at the negotiating table, they didn’t have much to bargain with, and the Council folks knew this.”
Certainly, Councilwoman Janice Hahn, the sponsor of the living wage ordinance, acted on the assumption that a referendum was a loser for business. At a Jan. 19 breakfast sponsored by the Current Affairs Forum, she and hotel lobbyist George Kieffer sparred over the issue. Kieffer repeatedly sought some sign of compromise; Hahn wouldn’t budge. “You’re trying to get a deal because you know if you go to the people, you’re going to lose big time,” she said.
Walter, what did Arnold Schwarzenegger learn just last year about labor's ability to get its voters to the polls on ballot measures that directly impact labor? And why would the LAX hotels do better in '07 than Arnold freakin' Schwarzenegger did, espeically when starting from a major deficit, like this?
The hotels would've lost in May. They know it, I know it, the Fed knows it, the Council knows it. If you were honest with yourself, you'd know it too.
Patrick Meighan
Los Angeles Greens
Patrick, weren't you the one who said I didn't know what I was talking about when I said the Clowncil would hit up us taxpayers for this? Yes, you were. You claimed it wouldn't cost "us" a thing, because they would make the neighborhood a FEDERAL or STATE enterprise zone. Now, of course, the Clowncil plans to spend local tax money for "street improvements," ESL lessons and "marketing."
So forgive me if I find lacking your credibility in predicting the outcome of an election that the City Council was unwilling to allow.
P.S. Businesses don't like to "negotiate" with terrorists. It's illegal to pick out one small group of businesses, in one part of the city, and force them to pay higher wages than anyone else.
Patrick,
If I remember correctly, the hotels walked away from the table. this lefted David Fleming with his hands gripping the ankles waiting for "HIS POLLONESS" and the "FIRST LADY OF LABOR" to finish the "GREASING" of the supposed compromise. Mr. Fleming should resign from his position at the Chamber if he had any manhood left. In regards to the "KENNEDY REPUBLICAN", it is hard to run a campaign when your smarter half is working on the behalf of the opposition. Hence the moniker, "KENNEDY REPUBLICAN"....
Patrick, you also forget to give credit to willing enablers such as the "LA ANTONIA TIMES" and the visual media who plaster us with images of chanting "DUES PAYING FELLOW TRAVELERS" on a daily bases.
PATRICK, one day the bill for the run away spending and entitlements will come due (PUBLIC EMPLOYEES PENSIONS FOR ONE). Where will you be at that time ?? Hiding behind some tree ??
FREEDOM AND FREE ENTERPRISE
"RED SPOT OF REASON IN CD 14"
P.S. Patrick it is O.K. to call yourself a Socialist !!
RECALL JUDGE GIBSON LEE!!
L.A. COUNTY RESIDENTS...JOIN THE MOVE TO RECALL THIS JUDGE WHO GAVE NON-SENTENCES TO VICIOUS SAVAGES INVOLVED IN THE LONG BEACH HALLOWEEN BEATINGS!
http://www.recalljudgelee.com/
Patrick, why such contempt for the hotels?
Walter and other concerned citizens,
Fear not...this LAX Living Wage Inrease thing is in trouble and most likely (I'm being kind) won't ever see the dark of night.
At least, not if you believe the fly on the wall inside council chambers.
Frankly, anything or anyone that slaps this pathetic, do-nothing (of substance), overpaid CC has my support (even if the LAX hotels employ and exploit illegal aliens).
"Patrick, you also forget to give credit to willing enablers such as the "LA ANTONIA TIMES" and the visual media who plaster us with images of chanting "DUES PAYING FELLOW TRAVELERS" on a daily bases."
The L.A. Times, time and again, editorialized AGAINST the LAX living wage ordinance, so, with regard to the current subject, the above just makes no sense whatsoever.
"You claimed it wouldn't cost "us" a thing, because they would make the neighborhood a FEDERAL or STATE enterprise zone. Now, of course, the Clowncil plans to spend local tax money for "street improvements," ESL lessons and "marketing.""
Oh, argh, fine let's go down memory lane, shall we?
Here's what you said (in your first post in the wake of the announced compromise) with regard to the city tax implications of this deal:
"The City Clowncil, knowing that voters would reject its illegal attempt to hike wages for one industry in one part of town, decided to compromise by cutting taxes for the hotels in exchange for the hotels using the savings to pay higher wages.
So everyone's happy, except you, of course, will need to make up the difference by paying higher taxes. But they'll wait to announce that part."
So in answer to your specific assertion that the city was definitively "cutting taxes for the hotels in exchange for the hotels using the savings to pay higher wages" (an assertion you appear to have jetissoned like yesterday's underwear), I made specific response: that state enterprise zones and federal opportunity zones (which currently are the only two economic impact designations which currently exist in Los Angeles with regard to taxes) don't impact city coffers, and that IF this agreement resulted in the designation of Century Blvd. as one of the above, it wouldn't affect city or county tax revenues. In fact, lemme just quote myself directly:
"If, in fact, the city gets the LAX-area designated as an enterprise zone, that results in a tax cut of STATE and/or FEDERAL taxes for the hotels effected. It does NOT impact city or county tax revenue whatsoever (in other words, no city tax cut for the hotels, and no subsequent city tax raise for L.A.'s middle-class). A middle-class taxpayer in Los Angeles is not, in any way, impacted by the impostion of a STATE or FEDERAL enterprise zone on the LAX-area any more than a middle-class taxpayer anywhere else in the entire state or nation."
Now, obviously, if the city, itself, creates some brand new class of economic zone (other than state enterprise zones or federal opportunity zones) for Century Blvd., the above does not apply.
"So forgive me if I find lacking your credibility in predicting the outcome of an election that the City Council was unwilling to allow."
The above is called an ad hominem argument. I may as well say that your credibility regarding local tax expenditures is lacking after your celebrated claim that the county's 15,000-bed jail system magicaly contains 40,000 illegal aliens year round, costing the county $780M per year!
See how fun ad hominems can be, Walter?
But fine, let's, for the moment, remove my credibility from the equation, Walter. What about the L.A. Business Journal article, asserting what I, myself, just asserted about the hotels' likelihood of failure in the referrendum? Presumably the L.A. Business Journal can't be tarred as "Socialist" "DUES PAYING FELLOW TRAVELERS." Can it?
"P.S. Businesses don't like to "negotiate" with terrorists."
Assuming the workers, the unions, and/or the City Council are the "terrorists" in your analogy, you should know that businesses negotiate with the above all the time, and, in fact, did so with regard to this very issue, rendering your analogy as nonsensical as the whole rest of your post.
"It's illegal to pick out one small group of businesses, in one part of the city, and force them to pay higher wages than anyone else."
You've said this several times. You've never once given any citation to back it up, nor have you ever answered my simple question: if this living wage ordinance is obviously and plainly illegal, why didn't the hotels simply take the city to court and get it overturned? Why spend $2M gathering signatures and amass a $5M campaign war chest to do what any ol' lawyer could've accomplished in a court of law?
Would you please finally answer that question, Walter? Pretty please?
All the above said, and in the interest of finding common ground with you, Walter, lemme say that I, too, wish that the City Council had not struck this deal. I wish that they had simply put the Chamber's referendum on the ballot and let the voters decide. And if the hotels had lost, tough titty. For all y'all's whining about the "City Clowncil" doing the undiluted bidding of labor, they sure do roll over when the Chamber starts to bitch. They should've told the Chamber: "If you think this is politically inviable, take it to the voters. If you think this is illegal, take it to the courts. Otherwise, quit yer complaining and pay your workers a salary their families can survive on. We know full well you can afford it, and we also know that the LAX hotels aren't going anywhere." Instead, though, the Council tried to make everyone happy, and this is their reward.
Patrick Meighan
Los Angeles Greens
p.s.: With regards to your feelings that the city shouldn't "pick out one small group of businesses, in one part of the city, and force them to pay higher wages than anyone else": it seems, Walter, as though you are perhaps advocating the establishement of a living wage across ALL of Los Angeles! If that's the case, Walter, then I am with you, man! You get the ball rolling on that, and I promise you, I will jump right in with both feet! You and me, together!
"Patrick, why such contempt for the hotels?"
Antonio Watch,
I don't have contempt for the Century Blvd. hotels, per se, I just want them to pay their hard-working employees a wage that their families can live on, especially in light of the fact that those hotels can well afford to do so, and in light of the fact that many other hotels in the city are doing so. The fact that many of the big Century Blvd. hotels are refusing to do so doesn't exactly endear them to my heart, but at the end of the day I wish the hotels (as a collection of human beings) well.
Patrick,
Yes, the "SPRING STREET JOURNAL" did editorialize against the "LIVING WAGE". I was refering to your diatribe regarding the "KENNEDY REPUBLICAN's" reform efforts.
"RED SPOT OF REASON IN CD 14"
Patrick --
As for the only question / point worth mentioning in your rather-long-for-a-Sunday-night, the law in issue is called the Equal Protection Clause, and it's set forth in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. To avoid violating the Equal Protection Clause, the City would need to apply its minimum wage law to all businesses. I do not advocate that. On the contrary, I advocate letting employers and employees -- including unions -- negotiate mutually agreeable wages.
Note: I have neither researched nor commented on whether other laws may also invalidate city ordinances purporting to set minimum wages. There may be a state law issue, i.e., the state government having set a minimum wage, cities may not be free to establish different ones.
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