Cover Story

MR. LIVING WAGE

Smokin' Pot, Drinkin' Beer And Stumpin' For Votes

Meet the new and improved, clean and sober, Grateful Fred Smith

Addressing a group of Democratic women voters in 1997, Fred Smith had some
advice for them all. "He suggested that each of these women should grow a
little marijuana in their back yards," says City Councilman Tom Eldridge,
who was among the candidates who attended the pre-election forum. "Some of
them were laughing hysterically, and one woman couldn't stop. A few were
offended."

Smith had shown up at the forum unshaven, poorly dressed and generally
looking "rough," Eldridge recalls. His mother was in the audience.

"After that forum, his mom took him aside and I saw her give Fred an
ass-chewing like nothing I've ever seen for the way he showed up at that
debate," Eldridge says.

That was the old Fred Smith, taking his first run at election to the
Boulder City Council. It was a candidacy that, for all intents and
purposes, formally introduced Boulder to the "living wage" platform that
has become so popular among most city politicians.

Whatever happens to Smith in this election, he long ago won hearts and
minds in Boulder with his central political theme: the need for a "living
wage," in which people who work for city government, including city
contractors, would be paid enough to live in Boulder.

Back in 1997, Smith said "living wage" about as frequently as entrenched
Boulder politicians say "affordable housing." Drunk and stoned, he did his
best to explain it and apparently a lot of people listened.

Today, most of the 15 candidates for city council support the living wage
to some degree. And nobody the Weekly spoke to had anything other than kind
words to say about Smith.

The new Fred Smith is even more vociferous in advocating the "living wage,"
but his approach is a bit more sober. He's still an old farm boy who grew
up slopping hogs near remote and rural Carthage, Ill. He still says "doing
the warsh" when laundering clothes; he refers to Boulder Creek as a
"crick"; and all forms of soft drinks are "pop." But Smith has been off
drugs and beer for three years, following the advice of a doctor who told
him a clean and sober lifestyle would help keep his manic depression and
paranoia in check.

Smith came to Boulder in the mid 1980s. He had earned a degree in
agricultural economics from the University of Illinois. Just after
graduation, he went to work on his dad's farm slopping hogs for $5 an hour.
It didn't go well.

"Dad kicked me off the farm, 'cause I was drinking all the time," Smith
said. "He got tired of my shit, and I got tired of his shit."

Smith's brother, Dave, lived in Boulder making "big money" working for a
high tech firm. Smith had visited Boulder and loved it, so he came here to
live near his brother. He took a job doing landscape, following his
brother's advice.

"I worked with Mexicans, and I couldn't talk to them and they couldn't talk
to me," Smith says.

But they could share weed together, and "the Mexicans" seemed to have
plenty of it. Smith said he had never tried marijuana before coming to
Boulder, and he quickly learned to love it.

"I began smoking it three to four times a day, and then more," Smith says.
"I just loved the high. I'd get so damned high that I felt like I could
fly. I'd go to the Sink (on the Hill) and drink beer for hours. Then I'd go
to the deck at K's China and smoke pot for the rest of the day. I'd work
about five days a month, only when I was really broke. It was a great life,
but it just doesn't work for me now. Sometimes I kind of miss it."

His mom, Norma, likes the new and improved Fred. Norma moved to Boulder
after Fred and follows his campaigns as a loyal supporter. The ass-chewing
Eldridge describes resulted from Norma's exasperation with Fred's marijuana
obsession.

"He always tells me I should smoke pot because I have Multiple Sclerosis,"
says Norma. "I'm a Republican and I don't like this pot thing. I'm always
proud when Fred does something good, like running for city council, instead
of just smoking pot all the time."

This is Smith's third run at a council seat, and not everyone takes him
lightly as some sort of fringe candidate with so many eccentricities that
he can't possibly be elected. It normally takes about 9,000 votes to win a
seat on the city council, and in 1997 Smith received about 2,000. In 1999,
nearly 4,000 voted for him.

"In the last election, I spent $1,000," Smith says. "Sheila Horton spent
$28,000, and she only got twice as many votes as me. Per dollar, I kicked
her ass."

"He had a pretty good showing last election," says Eldridge. "You get five
votes. I think most people vote for four candidates they're very serious
about, and they're willing to take a chance with the fifth one. Fred Smith
could get a lot of those fifth votes."

And besides, says Eldridge, Fred's just one helluva likable guy.

"He has some great ideas," says Eldridge. "He talks about the need for all
of us to use more wind power, for example, and I couldn't agree more. At
Tom's Tavern (a restaurant Eldridge owns), 100 percent of my electricity
comes from wind power. The technology has improved, and the wind is now a
more viable and efficient source of energy than ever before. A lot of
people don't know that, but Fred understands it."

Like most of the other 14 candidate for council, Smith lauds himself as a
friend of the environment. Sure, Smith grew up on a dirty, smelly,
air-polluting hog farm, but he got fired fair and square by his own dad!
And now that he's not burning weed, Smith can argue that his lifestyle
results in less-than-average air pollution.

Smith, you see, never drives a car. He doesn't even own a car, and rides
the bus wherever he goes. Even Councilman Spense "I ride a bike almost
everywhere" Havlick can't claim that.

"I really don't understand people who live in Louisville or Lafayette, so
they can save a few hundred dollars on their rent or mortgage, and then
they spend a few hundred dollars a month driving to and from Boulder every
day," Smith says. "People don't account for the amount of money it costs to
commute by car. You need a reliable vehicle, which costs more, you have to
pay for gas and you have to pay to park it somewhere. It doesn't make sense."

As a politician, Smith says he'd do his part to end something else that
makes no sense: the War on Drugs.

Even though he's clean and sober, Smith says marijuana is a wonderful drug.
For the average person, he says pot is a harmless way to relax and a good
cure for an array of ailments. The drug war, he says, is nothing but a scam
to fund police agencies, private prisons, and other players in the
correctional industrial complex.

"I'm all for people smokin' pot and drinking beer," Smith says. "I just
can't do it myself anymore, but that doesn't change my position on the
issue one bit. There's a state politician in Lawrence, Kansas, who wins
every election by saying we need to legalize pot. I think it's a good cause
that a lot of people agree with."

Smith, a member of the Green Party, defines himself as a "left-wing
liberal." He says standard labels, however, are confusing and misleading.
In many ways, he says, the anti-drug war platform is a "right-wing"
movement that calls for less government intervention in the lives of
private citizens.

"The left and the right go in a circle, and if you go too far in either
direction you end up meeting on the back side," says Smith.

But as a Midwestern farm boy, Smith says he was influenced mostly by
right-wing ideology. His grandfather was a conservative Republican
alcoholic who attended GOP conventions to hobnob and drink. Fred knew
nothing other than conservative philosophy until he was kicked off the farm
and started reading progressive magazines such as The Progressive, The
Nation and most recently The American Prospect.

"I'm just glad I didn't decide to vote when I was in college, because I'd
have voted for Reagan in '84," says Smith. "That's just the way I was
raised, and until I really started thinking about politics for myself I was
essentially a right-wing Republican."

One of Smith's favorite books-one he carries around with him-is The Living
Wage: Building a Fair Economy by Robert Pollin and Stephanie Luce.

Paging through Smith's copy of the book, it's clear he has read it, re-read
it and read it some more. Notes are scribbled in the margins reminding him
of relevant passages about "corporate welfare," "the total cost of the
living wage," something that pertains to Spense Havlick, and the "breakdown
of tax subsidies." Sentences in every other paragraph are highlighted, and
the most important passages are underlined and marked with asterisks.

Smith views the living wage almost as a panacea for all that troubles
Boulder. Ask him about traffic, and he'll invoke the living wage. Ask him
about the sales tax base, and he'll invoke the living wage. Same goes for
pollution and affordable housing.

Under his plan, the city would hire nobody-no janitor, no meter maid, no
file clerk-for less than $12.50 an hour with health benefits or $13.75
without benefits. Critics, such as councilman Don Mock, have called the
proposal expensive and they ask where the money would come from.

Smith says some of the money, at least, would come from more sales tax
revenue that would be generated by more workers making more money and
spending it in Boulder.

"If they can live here, they can spend their money here," Smith says. "And
if they have more money to spend, that's more money the city collects in
sales taxes."

As for traffic, says Smith, people who live in Boulder don't commute into
Boulder. And living here, he says, workers are far more likely to learn to
ride the bus which would clean up the air.

And not only city workers, insists Smith, would be helped. Although he
discounts so-called "Reaganomics" and the trickle down theory-which held
that benefiting the rich ultimately helps the poor-Smith embraces his own
sort of reverse Reaganomics.

"The living wage has a trickle up effect," Smith says. "By raising the base
salaries of some of the lowest wage earners, it pushes everyone up."

Smith isn't sure exactly how or why a living wage law would boost the
salary of someone earning six figures, he just knows that it probably would.

He admits there's a kink in his plan, called inflation, and he doesn't know
how to solve it yet. Smith fears that if Boulder ever adopts a living wage
law, either for city employees or for the city at-large, landlords will
smell the extra money and raise the rents.

"Unless we find a way to stop them, the landlords will absorb this," Smith
says. "So Boulder will have to work together to figure out a way to keep
the rents in line or we will accomplish nothing."

Smith doesn't worry about the cost of groceries or other goods and services
going up in response to a living wage law. Unlike housing costs, he says,
the prices of groceries, gasoline and other commodities are determined
mostly on a national and regional scale. Therefore, wage increases in
Boulder wouldn't inflate costs.

As for rents, Smith says, the simple answer would be rent control. But
state law precludes Boulder from enacting rent control, just as it prevents
Boulder from forcing private employers to pay anything more than the
federally mandated minimum wage of $5.50 an hour.

As a council member, Smith says he would work to change both state laws. He
would try to convince his fellow council members to lobby the state
legislature to change the laws, and he might even push for professional
lobbyists.

Despite Boulder's high cost of living-the average home costs more than
$350,000-wages are low for the region. Smith says wages are low because
people tolerate it in return for a view of the Flatirons and access to
mountain recreation.

"So many people want to live here, so badly, that they'll work for nothing
as opposed to not living here," says Smith. "A huge percentage of the
people living in Boulder are just surviving."

Smith is among them. He works stocking french fries at the University of
Colorado-a job he cherishes. Combined with some assistance from his family
and a disability check, he nets about $1,300 a month. He earns two meals a
day at the university, helping to keep his food budget low, and his portion
of rent and bills comes to about $600 a month. That leaves only $700 for
food, transportation and recreation.

"The majority of people in this community rent their homes," Smith says.
"They're getting older and older and they're going to continue paying rent
until they retire with nothing. In this community, if you've got a down
payment you're set for life. If you don't, you're poor for life. People
with equity just keep buying and buying and raising the rents. People
without equity buy nothing. So people will be paying rent in this community
when they're 65. Social security won't be around and these people will have
no savings."

Candidates Lynn Segal and Julia Perez have made the living wage central to
their campaigns. Long-time council members Spense Havlick and Lisa Morzel
have expressed their support for the idea, and Mayor William Toor says he
supports it in principle. Most of those seeking seats on the council say
they support the idea even if it's not central to their platforms.

Leslie Rosen: "Adopting a living wage is doing what's right."

Nabil Karkamaz: "We have to look at it very seriously. It is something we
should consider."

Mark Swanholm: "Business learned a long time ago that you make more profits
and actually lower overhead by paying a good wage that's realistic to the
cost of living. You lower retention problems, you lower training costs, and
you have employees who are more loyal, more efficient, and who produce more."

Although Eldridge thinks highly of Smith, he's a critic of the living wage.
Eldridge says the city probably can't afford payroll increases now, facing
revenue shortfalls, and he's opposed philosophically to the government
tinkering with wages paid by private employers.

"It's not as if the market doesn't pay good wages to those who deserve it,"
Eldridge says. "We have a federal minimum wage that's basically
meaningless, because nobody is paying it. Instead of $5.50 an hour,
employers are having to pay $9.50 and up in Boulder, because that's what
the market dictates."

Eldridge rejects the argument that getting workers to live in Boulder
somehow justifies a living wage law.

"Years ago, there was a house on Mapleton Hill that I really wanted to
buy," Eldridge says. "But frankly, I couldn't afford it back then. The
argument that everyone should be able to live here, and we should raise
wages until that happens, just doesn't cut it. You get what you earn."

Smith doubts he'll be elected this year, but he's going to try. At the very
least, he hopes his campaign influences the debate. Maybe in the future,
Smith says, he won't be such a duck out of water while running for
election. He's working hard to improve his presentation skills, and to
overcome his Midwestern pig farm dialect.

"I still say 'warsh' and 'crick' and things like that, but I'm working on
it," Smith says. "And I know that I'm changing, because when I talk to
friends back home they can hear it in my voice."

Decades from now, whatever happens to Fred Smith, he'll probably be running
for the Boulder City Council. And one of these days-if not Nov. 6, 2001-he
just might win. If so, for better or worse, Boulder will never be the same.