Chamber Won't Participate in Initiative Campaign

By Jorge Casuso

Citing a lack of time, the Chamber of Commerce announced this week that it will not participate in the campaign for a proposed business-backed living wage initiative that covers city contractors and grant recipients.

Instead, its members will focus on opposing an unprecedented living wage proposal before the City Council that will require businesses along the coast with more than 50 employees to pay a minimum wage of $10.69 an hour.

"Because of the amount of time remaining and the committee's limited human resources, we have decided not to participate in the campaign to pass the initiative," said a one-page statement from the chamber's executive vice president Dan Ehrler and Tom Larmore, who heads the chamber's living wage task force.

"While the Chamber continues to support this Initiative as a means of permitting Santa Monica voters to speak out on an issue of critical importance," they wrote, "we have concluded that the Chamber will be unable to satisfactorily participate in making decisions regarding the conduct of the campaign."

Opponents of the proposed initiative - which was submitted to the City Clerk with 15,000 signatures, nearly double those needed to qualify for the November ballot - were quick to react.

"I heard they were very distressed by how the campaign was run and they were pushed around by the huge hotels (that bankrolled the initiative)," said Vivian Rothstein, an organizer for Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism, which crafted the proposal being studied by the council.

"They allied themselves with polarizing and nasty forces," Rothstein said. "The chamber has been trying to take a more positive role and they (the initiative sponsors) are very divisive and dishonest. There was backlash within their own ranks. But the damage has been done."

Larmore denied that disagreements over the initiative or how the signature gathering campaign was run accounted for the chamber's position.

"That's ridiculous," Larmore said. "It doesn't reflect any backing away from the initiative. There's only so much we can do. We don't really have the ability to get involved in the campaign. There's a lot that's going to happen in a very short time."

Larmore said the chamber will focus on responding to a report for the city being prepared by Massachusetts economics professor Dr. Robert Pollin, a proponent of the living wage. The report, which was scheduled to be submitted to the City Manager on June 26, has been delayed until late July.

"At that time, the committee will undertake a thorough review and prepare a detailed analysis for submission to the council," the chamber's statement said. "We expect to be asking chamber members to actively participate in this discussion."