[img]1307|right|Meghan Sahli-Wells||no_popup[/img]A couple of weeks ago at a spacious public library in Monterey Park, Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells addressed the first in a series of intended quarterly meetings of dozens of historically disparate Los Angeles County mayors.

Ms. Sahli-Wells vigorously embraced the concept and the environment, a brainchild of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, three months into his second year.

With Mr. Garcetti having trotted out his scheme for a $13.25 hourly minimum by 2017, Ms. Sahli-Wells seconded his plan.

“I have set out to make Culver City the best community in which to raise children,” she said this morning. “To achieve that goal, all of our families have to be able to afford to live decently, to pay for their basic expenses.

“A very interesting online calculator was put out by MIT,” says the mayor. “It showed, city-by-city, what a living wage would be across the country.

“The minimum wage in California is going up to $10 next year. According to the MIT Living Wage calculator, a single person with no dependents would have to make just over $11 an hour to make his or her basic needs – housing, food, clothing and healthcare.

“One adult on the minimum wage, with one dependent, would need to earn at least $23 an hour to meet those basic needs.

“A primary reason is that housing is so incredibly expensive in Culver City and on the Westside,” Ms, Sahli-Wells said. “There are plenty of studies saying Los Angeles housing is the most expensive in the nation.

“After losing the Redevelopment Agency, combined with some other issues, we are becoming a community where people who have lived here for years no longer can afford to live.”

(To be continued)