It Only Took Ten Months

My impression of Carnac The Magnificent:

Carnac holds an envelope to his forehead.

"It will be repealed in a five to four party line vote."

Carnac rips the envelope, blows in it, extracts a piece of paper and reads it.

"What will happen to the Living Wage Ordinance when it comes before the Manchester Board of Directors?"

Ed McMahon: "You are correct sir. Hey-oooooooo!"

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I'm surprised that the Living Wage Ordinance has lasted this long with the new GOP majority. Maybe I'm seeing more than that's there, but the vote in April with the LWO exception for Vision Technical Molding and Advance Mold is looking like the set-up and this next BOD meeting will be the knock-out punch for the LWO.

Director Peak, I can agree that it may be "an inefficient policy," as you were quoted in the Journal Inquirer, some government policy is inefficient or ineffective at best. I have one question, how do you expect people to afford to live in this state? If someone needs to make at least $18 per hour to afford a modest, two bedroom apartment in our area, how is someone going to even afford slumlord's apartment on a minimum wage of $7.65 per hour? I guess we will have to ask the Supportive Housing chairman, David Blackwell, to start planning for more low-income and supportive apartments around town.

Mayor Spadaccini thinks that this ordinance isn't fair to companies like Cigna, a company who made net profits of $1.12 billion in 2007 and $1.16 billion in 2006. (Figures from Google Finance) Mr. Mayor, how fair is it going to be to have people this winter who are going to have a hard time paying their rent, keeping their family warm with out of control energy cost, and feed their family with food prices going up at their current rate? This almost sounds like a twisted GIECO commercial: "Hey, were sticking it to the working class, but at least were saving a bunch of money on our town insurance."

Instead of repealing the ordinance, why not get both parties together and fix the so-called inefficiencies in the ordinance. The LWO isn't a magic bullet to solve the problems of the working class; however, it is a statement by the citizens Manchester that if you want to do business with us, you have to be a fair company and pay your employees enough to just barely survive in the state of Connecticut.

Director Beckman is always stating, sometimes very passionately, about the importance of his conscience when it comes to issues in town. I have a question for you Director Beckman to weight in your conscience. What is more important: repealing on ordinance that will primarily benefit the profits of a large corporation, or having a person being able to support their family with a decent wage?