The Longmont City Council spent Tuesday evening reviewing economic data and discussing the logistics of a community feedback event aimed at gathering input from businesses and workers who would be affected by a minimum wage increase.
On Aug. 14, the city will host a “fishbowl” conversation, a format that will invite employers and employees to engage in a structured discussion about the potential impacts of raising the minimum wage within city limits. Assistant City Manager Sandra Seader told the council the goal is to allow stakeholders to speak candidly while decision-makers listen.
Last year, the council began exploring whether to opt into a 2019 state law that allows local governments to set their own minimum wages. While the council decided not to raise the wage for 2025, members asked staff to return with more information and recommendations for public engagement.
Seader said that the effort has been underway for months and includes an economic analysis of 2024 employer data from the Longmont Economic Development Partnership. The analysis will include “what kind of industries are paying minimum wage, how many people are employed, what businesses would be impacted, what’s the impact to the city as an employer if the minimum wage increases, is there a benefits cliff, and what do the ranges look like for these jobs,” she said.
According to Seader, the fishbowl event will include a cross-section of stakeholders.
“We are looking at about 20 participants,” she said. “Ten workers and 10 employers, and our goal is to have a balance of small, medium and large businesses represented, and people from a variety of industries like restaurants, retail, nonprofit and healthcare.”
Several labor organizers, including Alejandra Beatty, president of the Boulder Area Labor Council and member of CWA Local 7799, a coalition of Colorado unions representing workers across a variety of industries, expressed frustration that workers and advocacy groups were not more involved in designing the process.
During public comment on Tuesday, Beatty addressed the council with concerns that the labor movement was being left out of the conversation. She told the council that she, along with some of her fellow labor organizers, did not receive invitations or prior notice about the upcoming fishbowl discussion. She expressed concern that the council was showing bias in favor of the businesses.
“When we put our workers first, we can build a better economy. But if you’re just going to put your energy towards one group, you’re never going to get the whole story,” she told the council.
Mayor Joan Peck responded from the dais in defense of the city’s outreach so far, saying that the city is including workers in the fishbowl discussion as well. Beatty called that response one-sided.
“She can provide comments, but not me,” Beatty said in a phone interview with the Times-Call on Wednesday. “The most obvious point I would make is that including workers inside of the fishbowl is not the same as including worker organizations who’ve done all the legwork to get us to this point.”
Beatty also serves as co-chair of the Self-Sufficiency Wage Coalition, which has pushed for local governments to adopt minimum wage levels aligned with cost-of-living standards. She said her coalition has already provided significant data and community feedback to the city over the past several years.
“We’ve done this work. We’ve had these conversations. We’ve built trust with impacted workers,” Beatty said. “We were hoping to build on that. Instead, it feels like the city is reinventing the wheel without us.”
Seader acknowledged during the meeting that outreach had limitations.
“We’ve invited people to be participants, but the public is also invited to observe. We’ll have notecards and an opportunity for observers to share feedback afterward,” she said. “That input will be summarized and provided to council before you consider any next steps.”
Scott Cook, CEO of the Longmont Chamber of Commerce, told the Times-Call Thursday that raising the minimum wage is a complex issue that should be examined from numerous angles. Fluctuating costs of goods and services, tariffs, and immigration can all contribute to a business’s financial health, and raising the minimum wage isn’t a quick fix, he said.
“It sounds great,” he said. “Maybe it’s surface-level to say we should raise the minimum wage. But then, when we start peeling it back, it becomes pretty complicated.”
Cook pointed out that the results of raising the minimum wage in unincorporated Boulder County led to an estimated loss of 50 jobs in Niwot. He said that the Chamber plans to refrain from any major decision-making until hearing more from local businesses and nonprofit organizations.
The council has not set a date for voting on whether to raise the local minimum wage. However, state law requires municipalities to adopt such measures by Aug. 1 the year before implementation. That means if Longmont wants to raise the minimum wage in 2026, a vote would need to take place by Aug. 1, 2025.
Beatty said her coalition will continue organizing ahead of the fishbowl and plans to push for more inclusive policy development. “At the end of the day, it’s about listening to the people most impacted,” she said. “And the people most impacted are already speaking. We just need city leaders to listen.”