to the wage hike idea in a preliminary vote last month, but he missed a major
vote this week on the actual language of the wage hike.
The Los Angeles City Council took part earlier this
week in what many considered a historic vote to raise the minimum wage in the city to $15, but one councilman said today he skipped out on the occasion to attend his granddaughter’s kindergarten graduation.
Councilman Bernard Parks, who is termed out in July, gave his blessing to the wage hike idea in a preliminary vote last month, but he missed a major vote this week on the actual language of the wage hike.
“No, I did not miss the meeting as a political statement,” Parks wrote in the latest of his tartly worded weekly newsletters. “I was at my granddaughter Hanaa’s kindergarten graduation. Something much more pleasant.”
Parks includes a photo from the graduation ceremony that gives congratulations to Hanaa and points her out as the girl wearing an “aqua” colored outfit.
Parks goes on to say in his newsletter that though he is “not one of Dionne Warwick’s Psychic Friends or anything,” he believes that “if this passes next week (and you know it will), it will go through several revisions like going ahead and exempting companies with unionized workers (because Rusty
has the Council by the neck), paid sick leave will be thrown in there, and restaurants and large and small businesses alike will just have to raise prices and/or lay-off people because I don’t see this ordinance helping them much.”
