O2718City Council Meeting: September 13, 2022 Santa Monica, California
ORDINANCE NUMBER 2718 (CCS)
(City Council Series)
AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA
AMENDING SANTA MONICA MUNICIPAL CODE SECTION 4.65.030 TO
PROVIDE A TEMPORARY EXEMPTION FOR EMERGENCY AMBULANCE AND
BILLING SERVICES
WHEREAS, on March 8, 2005 the City Council of the City of Santa Monica adopted
Ordinance No. 2152 (the “Living Wage Ordinance”) to require that persons working on
City contracts over a threshold amount receive a living wage; and
WHEREAS, the findings approved as part of that ordinance established that its
purposes include ensuring that those workers have sufficient income to pay the high costs
of living in the City, region, and state, to cover health care, and to have the leisure to
participate in civic life; and
WHEREAS, the Living Wage Ordinance is broadly applicable to all City contracts
in the amount of $54,200 or more; and
WHEREAS, recent experience has demonstrated that in some circumstances
strict adherence to the requirements of the Living Wage Ordinance is detrimental to the
City's welfare and does not serve the ordinance's purposes; and
WHEREAS, providing emergency ambulance transport services is of vital
importance to the City; and
WHEREAS, providers of emergency ambulance transport services do not control
rates for the services they provide and thus cannot currently comply with the City's Living
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Wage Ordinance; and
WHEREAS, on July 11, 2017, the City Council adopted Ordinance No. 2548, which
amended Santa Monica Municipal Code Section 4.65.030 to provide for a temporary
exemption to the Living Wage Ordinance for emergency ambulance and billing services
until June 30, 2020; and
WHEREAS, on June 23, 2020, the City Council adopted Ordinance No. 2640,
which amended Santa Monica Municipal Code Section 4.65.030 to extend the sunset of
the temporary exemption to the Living Wage Ordinance for emergency ambulance and
billing services to until January 31, 2023; and
WHEREAS, given the likelihood that the City will ultimately opt to extend the term
of its current contract for emergency ambulance and billing services, the City’s contract
with the provider of these services could have a contract term that continues until January
31, 2025, or two years past the expiration of the temporary exemption to the Living Wage
Ordinance; and
WHEREAS, the City wishes to amend Santa Monica Municipal Code Section
4.65.030 to further extend the sunset provision in the exemption to the Living Wage
Ordinance so that the expiration of the exemption is in alignment with the longest possible
contract term for the City’s current contract with its emergency ambulance and billing
services provider, or until January 31, 2025.
NOW, THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA
DOES HEREBY ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Section 4.65.030 of the Santa Monica Municipal Code is hereby
amended to read as follows:
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4.65.030 Exemption.
The requirements of this Chapter shall not apply to employers that are government
agencies, City grantees, nonprofit corporations, corporations providing banking services,
or entities providing emergency ambulance and billing services. The exemption set forth
in this Section for entities providing emergency ambulance and billing services shall
sunset on January 31, 2025.
SECTION 2. Any provision of the Santa Monica Municipal Code or appendices
thereto inconsistent with the provisions of this Ordinance, to the extent of such
inconsistencies and no further, is hereby repealed or modified to that extent necessary to
effect the provisions of this Ordinance.
SECTION 3. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this
Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any
court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining
portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed
this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not
declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the ordinance
would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional.
SECTION 4. The Mayor shall sign and the City Clerk shall attest to the passage of
this Ordinance. The City Clerk shall cause the same to be published once in the official
newspaper within 15 days after its adoption. This Ordinance shall become effective 30
days from its adoption.
APPROVED AS TO FORM
________________________
Douglas Sloan, City Attorney
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Approved and adopted this 13th day of September, 2022.
_____________________________
Sue Himmelrich, Mayor
State of California )
County of Los Angeles ) ss.
City of Santa Monica )
I, Denise Anderson-Warren, City Clerk of the City of Santa Monica, do
hereby certify that the foregoing Ordinance No. 2718 (CCS) had its introduction
on August 23, 2022 and was adopted at the Santa Monica City Council meeting
held on September 13, 2022, by the following vote:
AYES: Councilmembers Brock, Davis, de la Torre, Negrete, Parra,
Mayor Himmelrich, Mayor Pro Tem McCowan
NOES: None
ABSENT: None
ATTEST:
_____________________________________ _________________
Denise Anderson-Warren, City Clerk Date
A summary of Ordinance No. 2718 (CCS) was duly published pursuant to
California Government Code Section 40806.
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9/21/2022