Thread: Official opposes bilingual services

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Official opposes bilingual services
This story was published Thursday, May 4th, 2006

By Nathan Isaacs, Herald staff writer

A Kennewick councilman wants to provide English-only city services or start charging residents who need an interpreter.

City Councilman Bob Parks weighed in on the issue Tuesday dur-ing a meeting in which the council considered, and later approved, a three-year contract with the labor union representing the city's police support services employees.

Included in the contract was a 50-cent-per-hour pay increase for a day-shift employees who provide bilingual services -- in this case offering Spanish interpreters to people coming to the police station's customer service window.

The deal is thought to save money for Kennewick, because the city would otherwise pay $3 per minute, or $180 per hour, to use a telephone service that offers translations in many languages.

"My point was why are we paying $3 a minute when these people should speak English. And if they don't, they should be paying the bill," Parks said Wednesday. "Why should I (as a taxpayer) have to pay for someone that can't speak English?"

He said he wants residents charged for what they receive from the city that he considers above basic services. "It's my philosophy. It doesn't mean it's right," he said.

During Tuesday's meeting, he asked if the city could recoup the money it spends on interpretive services. He also wants a report on just how much money is spent annually for interpreters.

"I think enough is enough, personally," Parks said during the meeting. "I think this is a huge problem in the community now. It's going to continue to get worse. And I think government has been its own worse enemy in this whole process as we continue to get more and more taken, more burden is put on the cities."

He was told by Kevin Ferguson, Kennewick's director for corporate and community services, that trying to recoup the money would be difficult to administer and that operating costs in staff time might be more than what the city would collect.

Ferguson also said, in this case many of the people coming into the police station and needing assistance are crime victims or are helping police in an investigation.

Ferguson said providing bilingual services recognizes the diversity of the community. He also said federal regulations may require the city to make a reasonable effort to provide access to people with limited proficiency in English.

Councilman Paul Parish also spoke against paying extra for a bilingual employee, especially making it part of a labor contract. He rhetorically asked where it would end.

"Are you going to offer interpretive services for every language?" he asked.

Kennewick does not offer a premium pay for any of its other bilingual employees, such as those who work in customer service or police officers and firefighters.

Richland also does not pay its bilingual employees extra.

Pasco pays its bilingual police officers and firefighters a 3 percent premium above their base pay. City Manager Gary Crutchfield said the premium pay was the result of an arbitrator's decision in a labor agreement with police officers several years ago.

Crutchfield said the premium pay was extended to firefighters and paramedics when the issue appeared to be headed to arbitration.

He said no other bilingual employees receive the premium pay. But he said the city has made a concerted effort to hire bilingual employees over the past 10 to 15 years.

"We found it advantageous to us in the delivery of services to have the ability for bilingual employees at public counters and in emergency services," Crutchfield said.

He said about 10 percent of the city's 280 employees speak Spanish.

Kennewick City Manager Bob Hammond said providing better services also was the reason the city agreed to the union demand for the pay increase.

"Philosophies aside about what you should be speaking in the country, this is an economics issue," he said at the council meeting, responding to Park's and Parish's concerns. "We are forced in order to do our job effectively to have somebody there to speak Spanish."

Park said some of his frustrations stem from the ongoing national debate about immigration reform, and nationwide protests Monday.

"That's their right to protest," he said. "You haven't seen a lot of American people protesting; it's been a pretty one-sided protest."

He said he's expressing the voice of those wanting to get tougher on enforcement against illegal immigrants.

Parish referred to Theodore Roosevelt's often-quoted speech on immigration, saying "One flag, one language." He said he believes it should be a prerequisite that immigrants learn English.

"My grandparents came to this country and they had to learn to speak English in order to become a citizen," Parish said during Tuesday's meeting.

The councilman, who turns 70 today, clarified his statement Wednesday by saying it was his grandmother who emigrated from Sweden. Her husband, his grandfather, came from Georgia. His other grandparents came from Scotland.

I am so sick and tired of seeing billions of my tax dollars supporting arrogant, in your face, uneducated, filty, thieving, disease and poverty stricken illegal aliens. Where is it going to stop? Our cities are in decay, taxes and spending are spiraling out of control, families are just scraping by on stagnant wages while confronting stratospheric health care costs in addition to trying to put their children through college. These illegal parasites are receiving free health care, in-state college tuitition, welfare assistance (through fraudulent documentation) while our absolutely useless horse's posterior and toilet of a president and inept, incompetent and impotent senate along with an unholy alliance of left wing (let's accept all human beings even if it means bankrupting our economy...we are compassionate even with lawbreakers) celebrate a Mexican holiday.
It is a shame as I was an ardent Bush supporter, but not anymore. We have no more well paying jobs (all sent overseas and congress is proposing legislation to further increase the H1B pool from 65,000 to 116,000) And surprsingly, one sponsor of this is Senator Kyle, supposedly one our toughen the immigration law advocates.
Bush has allowed the highest trade and budget deficits in history and has in effect mortgaged our future. China, Japan and OPEC hold our iou's and as I previously mentioned I shudder to think of the consequences if any one of them or all of them calls for payments.
I never thought I would say this but he needs to be impeached and the sooner the better...if not for the sake of us...at least for our children.

Ferguson said providing bilingual services recognizes the diversity of the community. He also said federal regulations may require the city to make a reasonable effort to provide access to people with limited proficiency in English.

Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13166: "Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency [LEP]" – an order aiding and abetting the enemies of the states. This executive order was unconstitutional and therefor null and void -- it needs to be officially declared null and void by Congress or the courts