WMAL Interview - MONTGOMERY COUNTY COUNCILMEMBER MARC ELRICH - 09.27.17

INTERVIEW - Montgomery County Council member Marc Elrich -- Councilmember At-Large -- on MoCo holding a public hearing Tues night in whether to raise min wage to $15 an hour)
o Council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large) had presented a revised bill to the Council that addressed concerns about how a wage hike would affect the local economy. o Revised $15 minimum wage bill gets mixed reviews in Montgomery Co. (WTOP) - WASHINGTON — The latest plan to phase in a $15 an hour minimum wage in Montgomery County got mixed reviews Tuesday night at a council public hearing. The bill is slightly different from one the council approved earlier this year that was vetoed by County Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett. The county’s current minimum wage is $11.50 an hour, and under the new plan, businesses with at least 26 employees would have until 2020 to raise wages to $15 an hour. Smaller businesses, nonprofit groups and in-home health care providers would have more time — until 2022 — to boost workers’ pay to the $15 level. But Ron Zimmerman, co-owner of Zimmerman’s Ace Hardware in Burtonsville, thinks the plan would be devastating for him. “It will cause us to lose our business, plain and simple,” he said. o The Montgomery County Council held public testimony on Tuesday evening on a bill that would raise the minimum wage from the current $11.50 to $15 an hour by 2020, while allowing small businesses and non-profit organizations to phase in the higher wage more slowly. The bill is the second attempt this year to move the county to a $15 minimum wage. In January, County Executive Isiah Leggett vetoed a bill that would have done just that, saying that while he supported the overall concept, he worried about the impact it would have on small businesses and the county’s overall economy. Leggett is taking a similar position on the current bill. o (WAMU) - Supporters of a $15 minimum wage hike in Montgomery County are trying again, after efforts to raise the minimum wage failed earlier this year. The county’s push for a wage hike started back in 2013, when Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, and D.C. all agreed to raise their minimum wages in unison to $11.50 an hour by 2017. Then, earlier this year, the Montgomery County Council voted 5-4 to pass another bill that would raise the minimum wage again, to $15 an hour by 2020. But that effort didn’t make it past County Executive Ike Leggett, who “reluctantly vetoed” the bill at the end of January.