No One Deserves
    To Be Excluded

    I received a phone call from the Living Wage Network recently stating that the City Council is considering exclusions on the Living Wage Ordinance to include the handicapped and students. As a disabled person I find this absolutely appalling if it is true.
    I have been disabled for many years. I, like anyone else, deserve a living wage and am concerned about the serious repercussions of the idea that I don't. These ideas are a bit Machiavellian, if not Orwellian. The double-speak interpretations and practices that may happen as a result and adoption of this language are not only highly dangerous in our society, they are segregating and compelling people to impose economic hardship on to a specific groups of people who lack the ability of equal opportunity and go without the benefits of a equal compensation for comparable work done by others.
    In my 20 years of teaching college level art courses there were many younger and older adult students, displaced women and men, returning for degrees or training and having to work while attending school. Please consider that many of these women and men also may have families and/or had serious injuries, possibly in the workplace and are now slipping through the cracks of a broken social services and insurance system. I know only too well the problem facing many people that your living wage "considerations" would exclude.
    There is a sign on Cerrillos Road that says, "Santa Fe: building an inclusive city." If in fact the councilors are trying to build an inclusive city, they need to be inclusive of all people regardless of their economic status. Further consideration and any passage to exclude the physically and mentally challenged people or students from equal access to a living wage would surely be a violation of their civil rights and bring exorbitantly costly court battle to the taxpayers of Santa Fe.
    I hope the council will do the right thing here and choose to live up to its advertisement of building an inclusive community by giving all people the opportunity for a living wage. It's hard for me to believe that the council is considering this type of social injustice.
    Elaine Cimino
Santa Fe