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Gaithersburg balks on day labor center
Permanent site now ‘a long shot’ as community outcry pushes city leaders to pass on latest options
Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2006




by Sebastian Montes

Staff Writer

Faced with a crowd of irate Olde Towne advocates last week, Gaithersburg city leaders rejected their most viable site for a permanent employment center for day laborers.
The focus now returns to Grace United Methodist Church on North Frederick Avenue, where scores of day laborers continue to congregate for work.

City Manager David Humpton said he has meetings with Grace leaders this week and hopes to find a way to move forward working with them.

But Mayor Sidney A. Katz says he’s unsure whether Gaithersburg will ever see a day laborer center.

‘‘I have no idea,” he said Thursday. ‘‘Quite candidly, I can’t think of any other ... area where this could work in Gaithersburg.”

The Rev. Mark Derby, who took over the Grace congregation a month ago, said his church is trying to reassess what role it can play, if any.

‘‘We just have to regroup and come to a decision as to what we are able to do in the way of interacting with the day laborers and with the larger community,” he said.

The notion of a permanent day laborer center in nearby Olde Towne was put to rest last Wednesday night as business owners and residents converged on City Hall, saying that putting the facility in the historic heart of the city ran counter to the ongoing effort to revitalize the area.

Bowing to those concerns, the mayor and council squashed hope for a permanent center at 415 E. Diamond Ave. as well as an alternative temporary option at a parking lot next to City Hall.

City leaders are now doubtful whether there is any acceptable site in Gaithersburg.

At the work session, Jim Clifford, a Poolesville resident who owns several properties on East Diamond Avenue, was one of nearly 30 who spoke.

He recalled the struggles Gaithersburg went through in years past to establish a soup kitchen, a free clinic and a transitional home for the city’s homeless, each in Olde Towne.

In each case, ‘‘It was going to be the end of the world,” he said. But in each, ‘‘It was not ... and they’re a source of pride now for a lot of people.”

But, he continued, ‘‘Having said all that, at what point is it piling on in Olde Towne to continue to try to [solve] every social issue here?”

His question drew a roar of applause from the crowd, and it soon became clear that the audience had achieved its aim.

Searching for a place

Assistant City Manager Tony Tomasello then posed the question that, time and again, the city has not been able to answer.

‘‘We’re on an 0-for-28 streak,” he told the council. ‘‘It begs the question: ‘If not here, then where?’”

Gaithersburg has wrestled for two years with the issues caused by its growing population of day laborers that gather along Route 355.

On any given morning, some 100 men — mostly Latino, many of them illegal immigrants — wait for contractors, construction firms and individuals looking for help.

At one point, county police posted signs in the parking lot next to Grace Church giving the workers three days to clear out, or else face arrest for trespassing.

No one was, and that confrontation touched off a year of negotiation between city and county leaders on a day laborer center.

By July 2005, the two governments had picked a building, worked out how to fund it and started negotiating a lease.

But neighbors to that site, a few hundred yards from Grace, had not been invited to the talks. By October, the furor they raised led to that plan’s collapse.

The ensuing dialogue — oftentimes divisive and always emotionally charged — has pointed to a growing wariness toward a day laborer center in Gaithersburg, culminating in the clear opposition last week.

Humpton started receiving calls immediately after last week’s meeting from people with ideas for where a center could be located. Not one of them was one the city hadn’t already exhausted.

Including the City Hall parking lot for a temporary site, the city has endured 29 rejections in its hunt.

‘‘I still think the majority of the City Council would be willing to look at a site in the city,” Humpton said. ‘‘Is there still a possibility? I say yes, but I would say it’s a long shot.”

In many cases, potential sites did not advance because property owners did not want to support a project that would likely serve a large number of illegal immigrants.

The legality of establishing a center that would serve an undetermined number of illegal immigrants has also played into the city’s deliberations.

Judicial Watch, a government watchdog nonprofit that has filed a suit against the town of Herndon, Va., has sent Gaithersburg officials a letter contending that backing such a center with taxpayer money would flout federal law.

The letter ‘‘has some very interesting information in it — information we were not aware of,” Humpton said.

The city acknowledges that it discussed legal issues surrounding day laborers in a closed session last week.

Not going away

Meanwhile, day laborers continue to gather for work, regularly spilling over from the parking lot at Grace United Methodist Church to nearby lots along Route 355.

If that trend keeps on, the city could face a population that spirals out of control, said the Rev. David Rocha, an ad-hoc advocate for the laborers.

‘‘Jornaleros is not a place,” he said Thursday, using the Spanish word for day laborers. ‘‘It is a family all around the city. But my concern is that if the city does not have a solution, they are going to have not one places, but 10.”

In April, Humpton directed city police to increase their morning patrols of the Grace parking lot, which initially raised concerns from some in the Latino community. The presence of an officer in the parking lot every morning has since proven to be a positive step.

In an interview last week, Humpton said he has talked with the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement about a program in which local police are trained and empowered to enforce immigration law.

An increasing number police agencies across the country are taking part in the training, but the likelihood of Gaithersburg doing so remains a long way off, Humpton said.

Still, he said he is meeting with the city’s police chief this week to gauge resources for such an effort.

As for the county, spokesman David S. Weaver said there are no plans to open a center on its own.

He said Montgomery County remains committed to its partnership with Gaithersburg and is keeping ready $125,000 to help open a center.

And as for Grace, with the city rejecting the latest permanent and temporary sites for a center, the Rev. Derby is working on the issue with the leaders of the church’s congregation — a congregation that he acknowledges remains divided.

Winter will be coming, and the need for laborer shelter creates a built-in timeframe for the church.

‘‘We are definitely concerned about the lack of resolution in a temporary or permanent way, and that looms larger as more inclement weather comes near. We will internally be having conversations so that by early in the fall, we’ll be able to say, ‘Here’s what we’re willing and able to do.’”