Council will vote on wages
Petitioners gather enough signatures

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — City Clerk Patricia Holland is still certifying names on the 60-page petition the Gallup Committee for a Minimum Wage Increase handed in over a week ago. But having passed 980 on Monday, she said the group has enough to force a City Council vote on its proposal.

The committee is proposing to raise the local minimum wage stuck by federal law at $5.15 an hour since 1997 to $6.75 no more than 60 days after the proposal gets passed, to $7.50 by 2008, and in proportion to any increase in the consumer price index beginning in 2009 and every year thereafter. Work-study students, academic interns and businesses with fewer than 15 employees would be exempt.

To force a council vote, the committee needed to collect enough signatures to equal 20 percent of the registered Gallup voters who cast ballots in the last general election: 980. Having received that many names and then some, the council has no choice but to vote on the committee's proposal.

If the council approves it unamended, Holland said, the increases take effect automatically. If the council approves it with amendments, however, or even votes it down, it has to put the proposal to the public and set a date for a referendum.

The committee can take encouragement from the Bernalillo County Commission. It passed a similar proposal for $7.50 by 2009, minus the consumer price index adjustment last week. The city of Albuquerque passed one earlier this year to take effect Jan. 1. Santa Fe already has a higher rate.

The Gallup City Council may prove a harder sell, however. It wouldn't even discuss the idea of a minimum wage increase when Mayor Bob Rosebrough broached the subject last February.

The committee is hoping the hundreds of names on its petition might help change the council's mind.

Councilman Frank Gonzales, who may hold the swing vote in the matter, said he'd consider an increase if it had the local business community's support. A year-old survey by the Gallup-McKinley County Chamber of Commerce suggests it's evenly split.