By Jonathan Friedman
Associate Editor

September 8, 2014 -- Nearly 12 years after Santa Monica voters narrowly rejected a proposal to make this city the first in the nation to have a minimum wage covering businesses with no direct financial ties to the government, a new effort to raise the salaries of the lowest-paid workers could begin.

The trigger is Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Labor Day announcement that he was beginning a campaign to bring a $13.25 minimum wage to that city. Santa Monica Mayor Pam O’Connor and City Councilmember Gleam Davis want City staff to analyze this proposal.

O’Connor and Davis in recent days added a council discussion item to Tuesday’s City Council agenda about requesting the analysis.

The item also states:

“If Los Angeles raises its minimum wage, staff is further directed to analyze the effect that raising the minimum wage in Los Angeles will have on the city of Santa Monica and to place a discussion regarding the possibility of raising the minimum wage in Santa Monica on the council agenda.”

A majority of the City Council must support the proposal for it to proceed. Council discussion items are usually approved unanimously as a courtesy, even if individual members do not support the issue.

Santa Monica made national headlines when a proposal was placed on the November 2002 ballot calling for a minimum wage of $12.25 per hour for all businesses “located in the coastal and downtown areas and have gross annual receipts over $5 million.”

Measure JJ also allowed a minimum wage of $10.50 for businesses that offered health care benefits to employees.

Hotels and restaurant leaders said approval of the measure would be devastating to the local economy and spent nearly $3 million in an attempt to convince voters this was a fact. Enough voters were convinced. Measure JJ lost when 51.69 percent of the voters rejected it.

Since that time, the City has forced a so-called living wage on certain businesses, mostly hotels, through development agreements in which “community benefits” must be offered in exchange for variances to construct buildings with features not allowed by municipal zoning laws.

There are several efforts taking place throughout the country to raise the minimum wage on a local level. Seattle adopted an ordinance in June to raise the wage to $15 per hour within seven years. San Francisco voters will decide in November whether to make that city’s minimum wage $15 per hour.

Minimum wage in California went up from $8 to $9 per hour this summer. It will go up to $10 per hour on Jan. 1, 2016 under a bill approved by Gov. Jerry Brown last fall. The federal minimum wage is $7.25, with the last increase coming in July 2009.