Earlier tonight I was in the audience of the Economic Development Commission (EDC) meeting. I was glad to see all the members of the Common Council were present, minus Lyle Sohns. Tonight's agenda was a great one for heavy discussion and potential arguments, and both were quickly fulfilled. I plan on writing about the EDC over the next day or so, so please stay tuned to this blog!
I figured the first item to discuss was rather obvious. The sick leave mandate ban ordinance that was proposed by my alderman, Steve Olson, has triggered a lot of negative entries on the blogs and even sparked a debate between Common Council President Steve Taylor and Alderman Olson, as we saw several days ago. An EDC member, John Michlig of Sprawled Out, also had a lot of entries covering the topic and as expected provided a ton of commentary before the final vote. Here's how it broke down in what I felt was the briefest I could be for this subject:
Alderman Olson stated several facts on the proposed ordinance:
- If the Council does nothing, direct legislation (like what happened in Milwaukee) could make a significant impact. If his ordinance is passed, however, it prevents direct legislation from creating an ordinance "out of the blue".
- Direct legislation cannot impact an existing ordinance
- While the ordinance could exist in a few weeks with Council approval, citizens can still petition the Council to repeal it.
- He stated he was motivated to do this after seeing how it could affect the business in which he's employed, which is located in Downtown Milwaukee.
According to the Assistant City Attorney, who was present at the meeting, Whitefish Bay and Bayside were named as communities who put a similar ordinance off to the side until further notice. As far as I know, these are the only two suburbs to actually take a stance AGAINST enacting a ban on sick leave mandates.
Commissioner Joe Haselow was the first one to speak.
- He supports Olson's ordinance proposal
- It's his belief that mandates like this should come from a larger government, such as the state or federal levels. He doesn't believe municipalities should have this ability.
Enter in John Michlig:
- Why move quickly on this ordinance when there's nothing pending on this issue?
- He dubs this a "predatory" ordinance. From what I heard, it sounded like John was describing a "ring" of suburbs around the City of Milwaukee, like vultures surrounding an animal before it dies.
- Due to the pending court case, why prematurely vote on something that could be dead after the trial?
- Franklin is in no danger from its residents regarding direct legislation for an issue like this.
- How could an elected Council truly make a good vote on this matter. If the Council turns away this "predator" of an ordinance, they could become earmarked as anti-business and could harm their "loyalty oath". This issue could be put on campaign literature to promote who is more "pro business". I liked this part of Michlig's opinion. If you don't know what he means by a "loyalty oath", check out the campaign donation sheets from many of the aldermen and the Mayor. I have, and due to this I thought he was spot-on!
Commissioner Jon Zawacki provided a few tidbits against Olson's proposal as well.
- There was no data presented to the EDC regarding the impacts in cities that have a sick leave mandate in place
- While he was opposed to the ordinance as it was presently worded, he believed a middleground proposal would do well for both the Council and the people of Franklin.
Olson noted that there is data out there, but when asked why it wasn't at the meeting the response I saw was a simple shrug of the shoulders. This was when Chairman (and alderman) Ken Skowronski noted that a sick leave mandate is interpreted as a threat to small business owners. Commissioner Diane Oleson shared a similar point-of-view with Skowronski, noting a conversation she had with a small business owner in Muskego who wouldn't cross the Milwaukee County line due to this percieved fear.
Now came what I felt was the important points from Commissioner Joe Haeslow. Joe stated some opinions prior to this, but they were basically surrounding his family history and beliefs. His thoughts were:
- Businesses ARE taxpayers in Franklin
- He believed the city should leave the issue of sick pay to the businesses to handle themselves and independently
- As far as he was concerned, with a passing of this ban Franklin has an advantage over the City of Milwaukee
This was when Michlig had several rebutting points.
- There is currently NO sick leave mandate hanging over the residents of Franklin or their Common Council
- What is the impact of such a mandate? (Alderman Skowronski chimes in quickly to say that it's big)
- Passing the mandate ban now could be considered as spiteful towards the City of Milwaukee, going back to his stance on how it's a "predatory" piece of legislation
- He cites his wife's intimate knowledge of working with students on a daily basis. She works at an area school, and from what he has learned from her it's that people who don't seek treatment(s) for illness(es) fast enough can spread it quick.
Commissioner Rosanne Burac-Englert's comments followed John's.
- She believes it is the mission of the Economic Development Commissioners to promote economic development.
- It's one or the other, you're proactive or reactive to proposals like this.
- Retail spaces currently in the city are geared for small businesses. Smaller businesses = bigger impacts with wages and this mandate
- Talk about sick pay and health of others is more of a social responsibility issue.
John Michlig responded to that by noting that the loss of wages due to rapidly spreading illness(es) can have a big impact on the local businesses.
Commissioner Mary Karolewicz now had her turn to speak. She really only had a few questions:
- If this ordinance fails at Council, what happens to businesses in Franklin? Do they get slapped with a mandate? The answer was no.
- She then asked the threat level of such an ordinance via direct legislation, like Milwaukee's. That answer was diverted into two other issues, thanks to Alderman Olson. Olson noted that Franklin residents passed one direct legislation item; it was an ordinance regarding elected officials' elections. Olson also noted that a group was about to propose direct legislation on big boxes but was quickly stopped because the Council agreed with the group and enacted their own ordinance against big boxes over 125,000 sq ft. Olson called this citizen action "positive". I'm assuming this was in reaction to the Wal-Mart Supercenter proposal on Hwy 100 & Loomis 4 years ago.
It was during this time when Alderwoman Kristen Wilhelm asked for the Assistant City Attorney (ACA)'s legal opinion. The ACA went on to then state the pros and cons of such a ban, and then opined that the chances could be high that the workforce would likely go to cities or communities where the benefits are better. During this response I was rather disappointed with Commissioner Haselow and Alderman Skowronski, who were exchanging notes to each other via a piece of paper while the ACA was stating his thoughts. I found that rather rude of them to do, and Alderwoman Wilhelm did interrupt the ACA noting her displeasure over Commissioners not seeming to be interested in the ACA's advice and thoughts.
In the end of all of this, the final vote was 8-2. Chairman Skowronski decided the issue was so important that he voted YES to this ordinance as well. The two NO votes came from Commissioners Michlig and Zawacki. There was one "YES with reservations" that came from Commissioner Karolewicz. With that said, tonight is the final piece of the citizen group discussion on this proposal with the Finance Committee bringing it up. I have no doubts that it will be recommended to the Council for approval unanimously. The EDC was the biggest challenge, if you want to call it that, to the proposed ordinance. With recommendations from three citizen groups, as noted earlier, the Council is likely to pass it at the next Common Council meeting in February.
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