Thread: Group pledges to sink California initiative

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Group pledges to sink initiative

Kelly Rayburn, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun

RIVERSIDE - Opponents of a proposal to bar city-funded day-laborer sites and keep illegal immigrants from renting housing in San Bernardino pledged to fight the initiative during a National Alliance for Human Rights meeting Tuesday night.
The meeting came amid questions about when, or if, the measure will be placed before San Bernardino voters.

The initiative, led by Joseph Turner, who founded the group SaveSanBernardino.com, would impose strict penalties on people operating day-laborer sites without the right permit, slap $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and require the city's business be done exclusively in English except when mandated by higher law.

Signatures calling for the proposal to be placed on the San Bernardino ballot were verified last week, days after the May 1 boycotts and marches for expanded immigrant rights.

The San Bernardino City Council is set to weigh the measure at its meeting Monday. It has the option of adopting it or placing it before city voters.

The proposal has drawn national attention, and people on both sides of the measure say its outcome is important to San Bernardino and the overall debate on illegal immigration.

People arrived from all over Southern California for Tuesday night's meeting of the alliance in Riverside.

Armando Navarro, an ethnic-studies professor at UC Riverside and coordinator of the alliance, urged the crowd to protest Turner's proposal at the San Bernardino council meeting.

He pledged a massive effort to defeat the measure.

"San Bernardino will see a mobilization like never in its history," he said.

Earlier in the day, he didn't shy away from using a well-known historic analogy. "This is going to be our Montgomery for the new civil-rights movement that is emerging as we speak," he said.

Turner's response: "Comparing the plight of illegal aliens to the civil-rights movement is an insult to African-Americans. It's an insult, period. They're not even comparable."

San Bernardino city staffers are analyzing how much it would cost to implement the measure's proposals, a review they hope to complete by week's end.

San Bernardino Mayor Pat Morris has said he won't comment on the measure before the analysis is complete.

The city's charter requires the council call an election if it does not adopt the measure. That election must be held 90 to 135 days after the council's decision.

San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Kari Verjil and San Bernardino City Clerk Rachel Clark confirmed Tuesday that a special election would be possible in September, after questions arose last week about the timing of an election.

Verjil said an election after September was not possible because the Registrar's Office would be too busy preparing for the November general election.

Verjil and Clark said it would be easier to push the question to the November ballot, however, and City Attorney James F. Penman said his office is exploring whether that's an option.

Turner said there was no reason to hold the election in November and that he would like his measure to be voted on before the general election.

Earlier in the day, he didn't shy away from using a well-known historic analogy. "This is going to be our Montgomery for the new civil-rights movement that is emerging as we speak," he said.

Turner's response: "Comparing the plight of illegal aliens to the civil-rights movement is an insult to African-Americans. It's an insult, period. They're not even comparable."

every time I hear that, I get so ticked off! Montgomery is in ALABAMA -- it is our STATE capitol and not part of Mexico and their "movement" -- Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks were LEGAL CITIZENS of Alabama and the United States

IF they want to see another 'civil rights' movement, just wait, it's coming -- it might not be by massive protests in the streets but it will be a movement nonetheless. Just keep on insulting the America people and the Black CITIZENS of this country