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Tayer said that business leaders are merely urging county officials to take their <br />time with the vetting process, not necessarily opposing the concept of a <br />minimum -wage increase. <br />"We are always open to conversations about how we support our workforce in <br />addressing appropriate compensation needs. We've demonstrated that in the past <br />with our support of previous minimum -wage increases," he said. "That said, it is <br />inappropriate to rush a decision on such a consequential action for our <br />businesses. We would expect that our elected officials would want to make sure <br />they understand the impacts such a minimum -wage increase would have on <br />businesses, especially during a period when they are dealing with so many <br />economic uncertainties" related to the COVID-19 recovery, inflation, tax hikes and <br />a potential recession on the horizon. <br />"Our businesses have gone through a lot in the past few years," Longmont <br />Chamber CEO Scott Cook said. "We need to be very careful about adding another <br />challenge to these employers:' <br />Business leaders "are getting questions about whether we oppose minimum -wage <br />increases," Cook said. "We don't have that position at the moment. We have the <br />position that we want to engage in a dialog, a process where we sit down with <br />elected officials and gather information from our businesses. We plan to do that:' <br />While chamber officials aren't currently speaking out against the concept of <br />minimum -wage increases, the Northwest Chamber Alliance's statement provides <br />some insight into which side of the wage -hike debate they may ultimately fall. <br />"To blithely add significant additional cost to (business owners') bottom -line <br />expenses and inject imbalanced cross jurisdictional competition, completely <br />disregards the findings from studies in other communities of the further negative <br />business and employee impacts from ill-considered minimum wage increases," <br />the alliance said. <br />A committee within "the Boulder County Consortium of Cities has been <br />convening a group of local elected officials in the Denver metro area to gather <br />information on the legislation and explore opportunities to develop a regional <br />process to achieve a common minimum wage in Boulder, Broomfield, Adams, <br />and Jefferson counties," according to Boulder County's website. <br />Agenda Packet P. 21 <br />