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the glenview lantern | January 24, 2019 | 3
Glenview Village Board
Minimum wage, sick leave narrowly advance with 4-1 vote
Final vote
scheduled for
Tuesday, Feb. 5
Chris Pullam
Freelance Reporter
Glenview is one step
away from adopting Cook
County’s minimum wage
and sick leave ordinances,
effective July 1.
The Glenview Village
Board voted 4-1 in favor
of compliance during their
Tuesday, Jan. 15 meeting.
Trustees were originally
slated to vote on the same
ordinance with an effective
date of July 1, 2020,
but reduced the timetable
by one year during a public
debate that followed
nearly an hour of resident
input.
Trustees Michael Jenny,
Deborah Karton, Karim
Khoja and Kerry Cummings
voted in favor of
raising the minimum wage
and guaranteeing paid sick
leave for workers in the
village. The board previously
voted to opt out of
the ordinances but reconsidered
after Glenview
residents overwhelming
supported implementation
through a ballot referendum
during last year’s
general election.
“There are a lot of diverse
opinions [on this issue],”
Jenny said. “That’s
what makes us a great community.
… But it’s clear to
me … that the vast majority
of residents have spoken
through the referendum,
and for that reason, I think
we have to implement a
policy that is reflective of
that.”
Only Trustee John
Hinkamp dissented.
“I don’t feel this helps
workers,” Hinkamp said.
“It’s proven to eliminate
jobs. … This is a bad law.
It’s always been a bad
law.”
Cummings — a former
Glenview village president
— was appointed to
the board less than an hour
before the vote. She fills
the vacant seat left by former
Trustee Scott Britton’s
election to the Cook County
Board of Commissioners.
Britton had attended
the previous Village Board
meeting as a resident and
urged trustees to implement
the ordinances earlier
than July 2020.
Trustee Philip O’C.
White missed the meeting
due to an injury, but
his vote wouldn’t have
changed the outcome, as
ordinances only require
four votes to pass.
While Jenny, Karton,
Khoja and Cummings all
seemed to support adopting
Cook County’s ordinances
from the beginning
of the meeting, Khoja,
himself a business owner,
preferred implementing
the new rules on July 1,
2020, to give Glenview
businesses more time to
adjust.
Prior to the vote, he told
Jenny, Karton and Cummings
he would compromise
by supporting a Dec.
31, 2019 implementation,
but ultimately conceded
when Jenny called a vote
incorporating the earlier
date.
Earlier, Hinkamp tried
to leverage the uncertainty
around Khoja’s
eventual vote by making
a last-ditch effort to remove
the exemptions that
protect some religious and
governmental organizations
from compliance.
“The referendum didn’t
take into account any of
the people who were exempted,”
he said. “If we
are going to vote on this,
we should make it for everyone
without any exemptions
because people
working for government
or religion organizations
are entitled to a fair and
living wage, as well, aren’t
they?”
His bid ultimately
failed; Village Manager
Matthew Formica explained
that including the
provision would’ve caused
complications that his office
hadn’t considered.
The board will vote
again on the ordinances
during their Tuesday, Feb.
5 meeting. At that time,
since the first consideration
was not unanimous,
residents will be able to
address trustees prior to
their vote. If it passes during
that meeting, Glenview
will adopt Cook
County’s minimum wage
and sick leave policies
effective July 1, 2019.
How we got here
Last year, the Glenview
Village Board opted out of
Cook County’s new minimum
wage and sick leave
ordinances, but during the
Nov. 6, 2018 General Election,
Glenview residents
voted overwhelmingly in
favor of changing course.
According to Cook
County election results,
approximately 76 and 82
percent of voters in the
precincts that include at
least a small section of
Glenview, respectively,
voted ‘yes’ to these
questions:
- Shall the minimum
wage in your municipality
match the $13 per hour
Cook County minimum
wage law for adults over
the age of 18 by July 1,
2020, and be indexed to
the consumer price index
after that?
- Shall your municipality
match the Cook County
earned sick time law,
which allows for workers
to earn up to 40 hours
(5 days) of sick time a
year to take care of their
own health or a family
member’s health?
As a whole, approximately
84 and 89 percent
of Cook County voters, respectively,
supported opting
into the ordinances.
The questions were
posed to voters in every
municipality in Cook
County, regardless of
whether or not their
elected officials opted
into the ordinance, but
local governing bodies
were not obligated to opt
in or out based on their
constituents’ votes.
For towns like Evanston
and Skokie that did go
along with the county last
year, as of July 2018, the
minimum wage increased
to $10 an hour and will
increase by $1 each year
until it reaches $13 hourly
in 2020.
In municipalities that
opted into the sick leave
ordinance, any employee
who works at least 80
hours within any 120-day
period accrues one hour
of paid sick leave for every
40 hours worked,
up to a maximum sick
leave accrual of 40 hours
per year.
During the Glenview
Village Board’s Dec. 4
meeting, the board’s second
meeting following the
November election, Patterson
directed staff to include
ROUND IT UP
A brief recap of Village Board action on Tuesday, Jan.
15:
• Trustees authorized a Class A liquor license
for Skipjack, a full-service upscale Japanese
restaurant set to open in early 2019 at 81
Waukegan Road.
• The board approved a Class B liquor license
for Montira Thai, an existing full-service Thai
restaurant at 1845 Tower Drive.
an advisory item on the
Thursday, Jan. 3 meeting
agenda so the board could
explore several options:
stick with their original decision,
opt into one or both
of the ordinances, or write
their own laws on minimum
wage and sick leave
specifically tailored to
Glenview.
Residents of Wilmette
and Northbrook, which
opted out of the ordinances
in 2017 along with 105
other home-rule municipalities,
also voted overwhelmingly
in support of
the ordinances during the
2018 General Election.
Since then, both village
boards have readdressed
the issue.
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