Niwot BOCC town hall meeting dominated by minimum wage comments

In years past, when the Boulder County Commissioners came to Niwot for a town hall meeting, a wide range of local issues were addressed.

This year, the commissioners specifically asked for input on their decision to raise the minimum wage for workers in Boulder County above the statewide current minimum wage of $13.65 per hour. The commissioners have already voted to establish a $15.69 per hour minimum wage effective Jan. 1, 2024, for all workers in the unincorporated areas of Boulder County, except those who receive tips. Employers may pay workers eligible for tips $3.02 less than the standard minimum, decreasing their wage to $12.67, as long as tips make up the difference.

Businesses in Niwot will be subject to the wage hike, but Gunbarrel businesses are located within Boulder city limits, and will be subject to the state minimum wage unless the Boulder City Council decides otherwise.

The wage increase comes after HB19-1210, passed in 2020, which allows municipalities and counties to increase their minimum wage up to 15% higher than that of the state.

The commissioners heard many residents from throughout the county speak in favor of increasing the minimum wage in Boulder County gradually to $25 per hour by 2028.

Darcy Lopez from Boulder, who is a member of a union and works at the Table Mesa King Soopers, recounted how her rent had almost doubled in the last seven years for a small apartment where she and her son live. They do not own a car but rely on public transportation, yet are barely able to get by due to the high cost of living, she said.

Several others who identified themselves as members of labor unions or the League of Women Voters spoke in favor of increasing the minimum wage, while Mark Milliman of Lake Valley, a small business owner, expressed concern about being able to pay the increased wages being proposed.

The commissioners cited a study which reported that a family of four with both adults working full time would need over $100,000 of family income to make ends meet in Boulder County. Other than the one comment about the high cost of rent, no one addressed the extreme increases in housing costs in Boulder County as being the main contributor to workers' inability to afford to live locally.

On a more local subject, Jim Ringel and Eve Lempriere of the Niwot Community Connection (NCC) asked why the men's group sponsored by the NCC could not use the community room at Eagle Place to meet, in spite of a prior history of meeting there. The commissioners responded that they had just that evening received an email from county staff that the cost of insurance and risk management limited the use of the building to Eagle Place residents. After the meeting, several members of the men's group and Lempriere spoke further with commissioner Ashley Stolzmann, who vowed to look into the matter to see if a solution could be found.

Boulder County's subdivision road paving policy was another local subject which was brought up by a Niwot resident. The commissioners cited the increasing cost of repaving the subdivision roads in unincorporated Boulder County, now at an estimated $100 million which they described as "prohibitive on our budget." The county quietly changed to a "maintenance only" policy with an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan in 1996, but the commissioners offered no solutions.

Niwot resident Arlene Baldwin, who lives on Murray Street in Niwot, asked the county what they planned to do about the corn husks blowing into her yard every year from the farmland to the west at harvest time, describing them as "knee-high." There was no response from the commissioners.