http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... &cset=true

Job Center's End Won't Still Debate
# Costa Mesa sets closure for June 30, and many predict familiar woes: loitering day laborers, tangled traffic and bereft employers.

COSTA MESA CA DAY LABORERS EMPLOYMENT COMMUNITY
EMPLOYMENT
BUSINESS CLOSINGS
COMMUNITY CENTERS
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COSTA MESA CA




By Rachana Rathi, Times Staff Writer

The Costa Mesa Job Center will close June 30, surprising supporters who lauded it as a model for finding jobs for day laborers since its 1988 opening and appeasing longtime critics who argued that the center should not be bankrolled by the city.

Believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, the site has often been at the center of debate over the government's role in job assistance and illegal immigration. There have been repeated attempts to close the center.
From 6 to 11 a.m. each day, an average of 104 job seekers, most of them immigrants, gather at the center, at Placentia Avenue and 17th Street. They register with a valid form of identification. Employers drive up, tell the staff the types of jobs they have and how many laborers they'll need. Each day, about 34 workers find jobs such as construction, delivering phone books or flowers, or taking a senior citizen to the doctor.

But for many Costa Mesa residents, the center's primary purpose has been to get day laborers off the streets and out of the parks on the city's Westside.

Noting fewer complaints and the $103,000 annual cost of running the center, the City Council voted 3 to 2 late Tuesday to close it. Further, the council said use of the center would be limited to city residents and businesses from April 15 to closing. About 89% of the workers who use the center are Costa Mesa residents, and 56% of the businesses are in the city, according to city documents.

"It was mentioned tonight that there are no illegal aliens using the job center," said Mayor Allan Mansoor, who voted for closure. "If that is the case, I don't see why you can't use Labor Ready [a private job-placement firm]. I think it's more appropriate that individuals pay a fee for what they are using instead of the taxpayers paying that fee."

But center staff members and advocates, as well as employers and workers who use the center, said they didn't get fair notice to voice their concerns or objections. Some said the decision seemed to be politically charged.

"I'm in shock because it's very narrow-minded to close a project that's good for the community," said Pablo Alvarado, national coordinator of the National Day Labor Organizing Network. "Shutting something down like this because they're listening to anti-immigrant sentiment is really sad, especially without listening to the opposition."

Alvarado spoke against closing the center when the issue was before the council two years ago. Opponents argued that the center promotes illegal employment because some of the workers are in the U.S. illegally and prohibited from working.

At the time, police said the center thinned the groups of unemployed men who gathered in parks and other public places looking for short-term employment. Retired Costa Mesa police captain and area school trustee David Brooks said that was still the case.

Brooks, who was involved in opening the center, said that if it were closed, "it moves the priorities of the city's Police Department" from combating violent crime to punishing people looking for jobs.

Greeted with the news of the center's impending closure Wednesday morning, job seekers said they felt dejected and angry. But they said their options were limited, and that they may have to risk being arrested for violating a city ordinance that prohibits job solicitation in public rights-of-way.

"I've always supported the city by working. I'm a good citizen," said Ignacio Garcia, a 50-year-old Costa Mesa resident and Mexican immigrant who has used the center for 13 years. Garcia said he must work to provide for his wife, one of his eight children and a grandchild.

"This is unfair because this is the only way many people here can support their family," he said. "We're not doing anything wrong. We follow the rules of the center."

The center's two part-time staff members said they were taken by surprise and empathized with job seekers and contractors who use the center.

"The employers, especially women, feel safe coming here for workers because they're orderly and we have their contact information and pictures," said Jovita Guthrie, a program manager at the center for nine years. "The workers get a clean environment where they can wait for a job with dignity. Nobody's going to disrespect them. Nobody's going to belittle them."

John Price, who owns a Newport Beach construction company, has hired many part-time and three permanent workers from the center in the last year. Price said the closure would leave him short-handed and may force him to turn down some jobs. "I'm disgusted. The people who're here really want to work," he said. "If they close this down, people will be picking people up off the streets, and it's going to cause congestion and aggravation for store owners and customers."

Typically, day laborers looking for jobs congregate in front of home improvement stores such as Home Depot.

"We get customer complaints that they get harassed by people who want work," said Marty Nidungco, a manager at the Santa Ana Home Depot, where police routinely roust job seekers who gather in front of the store. "I used to work at a store in the Los Angeles area, and this is a typical problem for Home Depot."

The Los Angeles City Council is considering an ordinance to require all future home improvement stores to include day laborer job sites in their plans. The city funds 11 day-laborer job centers, spending $150,000 to $175,000 a year on each, according to a councilman.