Supporters of Burien’s voter-approved minimum wage initiative have publicly backed many of the concerns raised in an open letter to the city by approximately 36 local business owners, creating an unusual alliance over the city’s handling and implementation of the law while related litigation remains unresolved.
The business owners say they are not challenging the will of voters, but rather the city’s communication and implementation process, arguing that employers could face legal costs and potential back pay liabilities if current guidance later proves inconsistent with a court ruling.
Members of the Raise the Wage Burien committee that campaigned for the initiative said they agree with many of those concerns.
“As members of the ‘yes’ committee for the raise the wage initiative, we may be surprising to you when we agree with the business owners who signed this letter,” Jennifer Fichamba, Kelsey Vanhee and Stephen Lamphear wrote in a joint statement.
The committee members said they continue to support the voter-approved minimum wage ordinance itself, but believe the city’s implementation created unnecessary confusion for employers.
Business Owners Seek Clarification
The open letter, addressed to the Burien City Council, Interim City Manager Bob Larson and Interim City Attorney Ann Marie Soto, asks the city to publicly explain how it determined the minimum wage rates currently posted on its website and how Burien Municipal Code Chapter 5.16 is being implemented while the city’s declaratory judgment lawsuit remains pending.
The business owners said they relied on information provided by the city and now face potential financial and legal repercussions because of ongoing uncertainty over the ordinance’s status.
Business owners also pointed to language on the city’s minimum wage webpage encouraging those seeking additional interpretation to hire their own private legal counsel.
“Those requiring further support with interpretation of BMC Chapter 5.16 are encouraged to seek guidance from private legal counsel,” the city states on its website. “A civil action may be brought against violators of BMC Chapter 5.16 within five years of the date of the violation.”
The letter’s signatories argue that the guidance leaves employers in the position of having to spend money on private legal advice while the city’s own lawsuit over the ordinance remains unresolved.
“Our concern is that the City has publicly taken positions that appear difficult to reconcile, leaving employers uncertain about their legal obligations while simultaneously warning of significant liability for getting those obligations wrong,” the letter states.
According to the letter, the city previously argued in court filings that Initiative 1 contained legal and constitutional defects and did not clearly establish a minimum wage, but has more recently published specific wage schedules, implementation timelines and enforcement guidance.
The business owners contend they are attempting to comply with the law in good faith but face uncertainty because of what they describe as conflicting information contained in city litigation filings, administrative rules, official web pages and state agency publications.
The letter asks the city to answer 10 questions, including where the minimum wage is specifically defined within the municipal code, when employers are legally required to begin paying the published wage rates, whether enforcement could be applied retroactively to 2025, and whether the city intends to continue pursuing its declaratory judgment action.
Additional Questions Raised
The issues raised in the open letter were echoed in a separate letter from Burien business owner David Meinert to Economic Development Director Chris Craig.
Meinert wrote that he was attempting to understand the legal timeline and implementation process “based solely on publicly available information,” but had been unable to locate several records that he believes would document how Initiative 1 was formally incorporated into the city’s official ordinance records after voters approved it in February 2025.
“My goal is simply to understand the City’s interpretation of the law and the process by which the current minimum wage requirements were established and implemented,” Meinert wrote.
Among the documents he said he could not locate were a city ordinance adopting Initiative 1 into the Burien Municipal Code, a clerk’s certification showing when it was entered into the city’s ordinance records, council action incorporating the initiative into the official ordinance record, and a publicly available document identifying when Burien Municipal Code Chapter 5.16 was formally codified.
Meinert also questioned the timing of the city’s administrative rulemaking process and whether the stakeholder outreach process required under the ordinance had been completed before draft rules were released.
He also argued that Burien’s minimum wage for small businesses now exceeds those of neighboring cities because the ordinance does not include a small business exemption.
“In fact, the only higher minimum wage in the world is in Geneva, Switzerland,” he said. “While other local jurisdictions like Tukwila and SeaTac exempt small businesses from their minimum wage, Burien does not. And soon, that minimum wage for small businesses will equal the wage for large businesses.”
Meinert also criticized the drafting of the initiative.
“The initiative writers were not wanting to put an actual wage number in the ordinance, instead making it sound like it’s based on a neighboring city, but that city exempts small businesses,” he wrote.
“It was a deceptive initiative.”
“This makes little sense as Burien’s economy is a fraction of the size of neighboring economies. Burien’s economy is under $2 billion, while Tukwila’s is $5 billion, SeaTac’s is $10 billion and Seattle’s is around $300 billion.”
Initiative Supporters Respond
While reaffirming their support for the voter-approved minimum wage measure, members of the initiative’s “yes” committee said they believe the city’s previous leadership failed to adequately prepare businesses for compliance.
“The city, under the leadership of former Mayor Kevin Schilling, former city manager Adolfo Bailon, and former city attorney Garmon Newsom II, failed to guide compliance with the voter-approved initiative, which has been law since March 2025,” the statement said.
The group also criticized the city’s decision to file a legal challenge after voters approved the measure, a lawsuit that remains pending.
“The prior council majority and the city manager wasted public funds on a lawsuit that created confusion,” they wrote. “They misled businesses by failing to publish accurate information on the city website.”
Although they supported the initiative itself, the committee members said they also understand the challenges facing local employers.
“We know how hard our small business owners work and how important small businesses are to Burien,” they wrote. “We wish the former city manager and council majority had done the right thing and informed businesses of the realities of the new law, helping them to prepare once the initiative passed, rather than sowing confusion and misinformation that may cost these businesses even more in legal fees and back pay.”
The group also argued that delays in implementation may have affected workers who would have benefited from higher wages.
The statement concludes by expressing appreciation that the city’s website now provides what the group described as clearer information for both workers and employers, while urging that no additional public resources be spent pursuing further legal action.
City Says Guidance is Being Expanded
In response to questions raised by business owners and residents, the City of Burien said it is continuing to develop guidance and resources while emphasizing that compliance with the ordinance ultimately rests with employers and employees.
“The City is working hard to both meet and exceed the requirements outlined by the voter-enacted minimum wage law,” the city said in a written statement provided to The B-Town Blog.
According to the city, the Fair Labor Standards Ordinance, codified as Burien Municipal Code Chapter 5.16, was approved by voters in February 2025 and became effective March 23, 2025.
The city also pointed to the Burien City Council’s May 18 action “to clarify the minimum wage rate and to assure compliance with BMC Chapter 5.16” while the declaratory judgment action remains pending.
The council action repealed the city’s previously adopted councilmatic minimum wage ordinance, leaving the voter-approved initiative as the operative law, according to city officials.
Officials said staff have been collecting public questions and are working across departments to expand information available on the city’s website, including a frequently asked questions section.
“The City is grateful for the thoughtful questions posed by community members, which staff have been collecting and collaborating in a focused, cross departmental approach in an effort to continue adding more information to the website as it is possible to do so,” the statement said.
According to accompanying signature sheets, approximately 36 businesses and business owners signed the open letter requesting clarification regarding the implementation of the minimum wage ordinance.
The supporters of the initiative claim they agree with small business owners. But small business owners agree with Kevin Schilling who they then criticize. They are attempting to look like they are aligning with small business just so they have credibility to smear someone they agree with with while dodging the actual issue and supporting a position that threatens all small businesses in Burien.
Reality is, as the small business owners point out in their letter, that the initiative is poorly drafted, tried to deceptively not include an actual wage by referring to other city’s ordinances, which don’t actually define a wage. And this, as Adolfo and the former city attorney rightly argued, the initiative is invalid. The city cannot, under state law, then just pick a number the initiator doesn’t define.
If the supporters of the initiative truly agree with small business owners then they are claiming, and would be correct, that the initiative is invalid.
Instead the minimum wage activists are arguing that the wage, which wasn’t published, was being litigated by the city in court as invalid, and in the only place that it was defined was by the state LNI as different than what the city is now saying, is retroactive which could mean a local small business with just ten minimum wage employees could owe close to $150,000 in back wages and fines. And that would close many of them in Burien.