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Higher fines sought for day-labor hiring
Aimed at contractors stopping on Arizona Ave.

Eugene Mulero
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 31, 2006 12:00 AM


Chandler's Human Relations Commission wants the city to increase fines for those stopping to pick up day laborers south of downtown.

Commission members would not say what the new fines should be, just that they should be higher than the $25 tickets police issued last year to those who stop along Arizona Avenue between Chandler Boulevard and Pecos Road.

That recommendation likely will be made at a City Council meeting next month.

Commission member Joel Munter said higher fines are needed because an increased police presence along south Arizona Avenue last year did little to deter contractors and other employers from picking up day laborers.

"We regularly monitor the progress of the initiatives that the city instituted related to day laborers," Munter said.

"It is not my general trend to criticize but instead to inform and educate. We take day labor very seriously."

For more than a year, the commission has been charged by the City Council with addressing issues related to day laborers, including hosting a session last summer that brought in immigration experts to speak on the issue.

Members of the commission want to meet with the Rev. Jose Gonzalez, director of the Light and Life Free Methodist Church, which runs a privately funded day labor center on Arizona Avenue just south of downtown, to explain why they're calling for harsher fines.

The site is off the main street away from traffic, but the majority of day laborers in Chandler prefer instead to gather on the street rather than use the center.

Gonzalez said he has stepped up promotion of the center to gain community support because he wants to guarantee his church and the day labor center remain a part of Chandler's future.

On Sept. 6 a consultant hired by Chandler is expected to present details to the city's Planning and Zoning Commission for revitalizing the area south of downtown by replacing some single-family homes and businesses on and near Arizona Avenue with mid-rise condos and new retail. That could mean moving the Light and Life Free Methodist Church if the property owner - listed in county records as the General Mission Board Free Methodist Church of America - decides to sell to developers.

Gonzalez said moving the center would expose men, mostly undocumented immigrants, to harsher conditions.

"We're offering a place for workers to safely wait for jobs," Gonzalez said, in Spanish.

Leah Powell, the commission's city liaison, said she would broker a meeting between Gonzalez and the commission.