Ald. Devon Reid (8th) stormed out of Monday night’s Evanston City Council meeting as it became clear the council would again table a proposed minimum wage ordinance he sponsored.
With Reid gone, the motion to table until March the ordinance that would give Evanston the highest minimum wage in Illinois was approved.
Evanston does not have its own minimum wage ordinance now, so employers here are required to follow the Cook County minimum wage ordinance. It now requires a pay rate of $13.70 an hour and is scheduled to rise to $14.05 in July.
Reid’s plan would set the minimum wage for employers with 100 or more workers at $16.25.
Several council members voiced fears about the impact of the proposed higher wage on local businesses.
Ald. Clare Kelly (1st) said an increase that only impacts Evanston could disadvantage the local community.
Ald. Tom Suffredin (6th), noting that the ordinance would impose a lower, $15.50 minimum wage for businesses with less than 100 employees, suggested the two-tier wage system might discourage businesses from staffing up for their peak seasons.
He said businesses elsewhere are taking advantage of what’s perceived as an environment hostile to business in Evanston and are growing in ways that businesses in Evanston are not.
The council approved two amendments to the ordinance before the vote to table it, both proposed by Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th).
One eliminated the automatic annual cost of living increases included in Reid’s plan. Nieuwsma said those could ultimately “add up to something unreasonable.”
The other other change would set the lower youth minimum wage for small employers at the Cook County rate, set to rise to $14.00 in July, rather than the $15.50 rate in Reid’s proposal.
With Reid gone the Council then voted to scuttle his plan to ban merchants from refusing to accept cash payments.
Reid has claimed the practice — seen as a security measure by merchants — discriminates against low-income residents who may be “unbanked.”
Kelly said she believed the city should look into installing cash-to-card kiosks instead.
She said Chicago has such kiosks at police stations and libraries and that the city absorbs the $1 fee per transaction for its residents.
Nieuwsma said he favored the kiosk idea and asked staff to develop more information about that.
Ald. Eleanor Revelle (7th) said Ald. Melissa Wynne (3rd), who was absent from the meeting, had told her that several small business owners on the Main Dempster Mile are concerned about the security and safety issues around handling cash.
But Ald. Krissie Harris (2nd) said she favored banning cashless businesses and suggested that going cashless is racist.
The cashless ban ordinance was rejected on a 4-2 vote with Harris and Ald. Juan Geracaris (9th) voting in favor of it.
This is how a mature alder responds to things not going his way.
There are times when one wants to lead, and times when one want to follow. Having the highest minimum wage in the area is not a situation where we want to lead. We saw that on an international level when huge corporations moved overseas to have lower overhead. The result was countless American jobs lost to foreign worker. I’d suggest to Ald. Reid that he put his efforts into working towards a higher state or national minimum wage which would put all businesses, including those in Evanston on a level playing field.
Right! Take my toys and go home.
As a 7th Ward resident and business partner, I hope that Alder Revelle is actively interviewing businesses in her ward regarding this and not just passing on what an absentee colleague told her about employers in her ( 3rd) Ward!
Reid-Like a toddler having a tantrum.
You can grow the government, or you can grow the economy – pick ***one***…
Respectfully,
Gregory Morrow – Evanston 4th Ward resident
Reid’s continuing drama-queen theatrics are increasingly tiresome.
At a time when several Evanston businesses are struggling, and in many cases leaving or ceasing operations within Evanston altogether, proposing yet another city ordinance that would substantially increase labor costs is at best ill-advised. Recommend Devon Reid reaches out to the Evanston Economic Development office to get a better perspective on the multiple challenges businesses are facing within Evanston today before proposing more restrictions for consideration by the Evanston City Council.
I thought wages would go up as a result of our new stadium use amendment and MOU? Generational wealth for all with many new jobs being created. Why are our Alders spending time interfering with the State and County on this issue?
I was disappointed when I read that Alder Harris characterized the practice of non-cash retail business as racist. I would like to know if she considers the stated view that there is a concern about safety disingenuous. This is something that has been discussed since the measure was introduced at City Council. If she is taking the discussion seriously and considering events in her own ward, then she must know about the armed robbery which happened there back in November (https://evanstonnow.com/holdup-at-7-eleven/).
Prior to reading the Council re-cap last night I had though of Alder Harris as someone who tried to balance reasonable considerations from more than one side. Implying that four of her fellow alders voted to protect a racist practice can only serve to divide the Council and build resentment.
Krissie, going cashless isn’t racist, thinking and saying it’s racist is racist. You’re automatically assuming that going cashless affects blacks only. It affects everyone but it’s definitely not racist. For someone with your power you shouldn’t be throwing around that term so loosely. It’s not a race issue, stop it with that, you’re better than that.
I highly doubt that a sizable portion of Evanston residents do not have a bank account when most businesses nowadays use direct deposit to pay their employees, and there are plenty of alternatives to traditional bank accounts such as Cash app and others. The majority alderman are correct that having a higher minimum wage than Chicago and the county would put small businesses in Evanston at a disadvantage. Devon Reid and another one of his public tantrums. Hopefully we can get a decent candidate in the next election so we can rid ourselves of this clown. And where did we get the term “unbanked” from? It that another woke term?
Hi Lew,
Regarding “Unbanked” … See Wikipedia, the FDIC and Investopedia.
— Bill
Notice how the Council was able to move forward on several matters after Reid took his ball and went home pouting. Removing his “noise”, and hopefully him, from the Council will be a positive development for Evanston.
Too bad this council can’t bring itself to approve some reasonable disciplinary actions including recall. Reid’s constituents deserve better. The worst thought is perhaps they had better representation after Reid left. Waiting until the 2025 is too long.
I think it is best to not discipline walking out of a council meeting in protest. If that were possible, then that process could be abused. The city council could not even bring themselves to censure him when he was the City Clerk and leaked confidential information. All of that information was available when the 8th Ward voted out their incumbent and voted him into the City Council. No one should be surprised; the 8th Ward and Evanston is getting exactly what it deserves.
In this case it actually worked out since the City council could then act on something which Reid would have opposed.
Regarding businesses going cashless for reasons of worker safety, let’s remember that retail workers are near the bottom of the workforce economically, right above unskilled farm laborers, and many retail workers are from marginalized racial/ethnic groups in addition to being low income. Evanston progressives are putting their desired mandatory cash policy on the backs of the lowest paid workers in Evanston whose safety they would willfully endanger by this policy.
Let’s survey Black and Latino store owners and workers and see what they have to say on cash vs. cashless? A while back I read one juice store owner in south Evanston who is Black say she would rather give an occasional free juice to a homeless person (which was her policy) than be forced to accept cash payments.
The alternative of offering stored value payment card machines to serve the unbanked sounds like a great idea to help the unbanked without putting retail workers in serious risk or death (remember the Evanston liquor store employees of some years back).