http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/12 ... _23_06.txt

Vista newsmakers help thrust city into national spotlight

By: North County Times

Editor's note: This is part of a series looking at folks who helped make 2006 newsworthy.

VISTA ---- In the nearly 20 years since 37-year-old Asuncion Hernandez received papers to work legally in the United States, he said he has done it all ---- tended agricultural fields and nurseries, worked in construction and factories, and even done landscaping for the city.

Some of the jobs he held were full-time, minimum wage positions, while others were temporary openings ---- work he just picked up at day-labor hiring sites to supplement his income, he said.

Still, no matter how the work was classified, Hernandez said, the constant was that you could always find work somewhere, typically on a street corner or popular parking lot.

That changed this summer when the Vista City Council passed a controversial day-labor ordinance that requires potential employers to register with the city and issue written terms of employment to the workers before hiring them.

"This was a very difficult year," the soft-spoken Mexican immigrant said in Spanish. "Life is not the same as before, it's more difficult."

Hernandez is one of two plaintiffs and day laborers listed in a federal lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the California Rural Legal Assistance Inc., against Vista. The lawsuit, which is still working it way through the federal system, claims that the ordinance violates constitutional free speech rights and was motivated by unlawful discrimination.

Passed unanimously by the council on June 27, city officials have said that the ordinance was designed to protect day laborers from employers by providing them with a written contract and terms.

From Hernandez's perspective, it has only hurt workers by discouraging potential employers from visiting hiring sites or taking on laborers at all.

"There is no work," said Hernandez, who visited Vista's popular hiring spot, a shopping center parking lot at South Santa Fe and Escondido avenues, on weekends to supplement a full-time job.

"It's difficult to find work to support the family," he said with sadness in his voice.

Hernandez, who moved to the United States in 1986 with his father, became a legal immigrant in 1987 and has lived in San Diego County since. His wife works at a nursery and their two teenagers are enrolled in Vista Unified schools.

He has never depended solely on day-labor work. Unlike the other plaintiff in the case, he said he has not been hit as hard as other workers.

He has come home empty-handed after seeking work at the once busy Vista hiring site, but he has not been forced to go hungry, like many others, Hernandez said.

By joining the lawsuit, he said, he hopes to win, have the ordinance overturned and eventually be able to look for work again in Vista.

"I don't think that this topic is over," he said. "It's going to continue."

Unlikely activist creates citizen's brigade

Mike Spencer has not always stood alongside illegal-immigration opponents.

The Vista resident and founder of the anti-illegal immigration group, the Vista Citizens Brigade, actually hired illegal immigrants at one time.

"At some points, when the workload got heavy, we had a dozen," Spencer said about the wrought-iron metal working factory he ran in Los Angeles in the late 1990s. "They gave us their fake documents and we took their fake documents.

"And at that time I was of the belief that our society could handle illegal immigration ---- you know, we could absorb (it) and that these people were not such a drain," Spencer said.

His attitude changed dramatically as the craftsmanship, dependability and work ethic of the immigrants he hired declined, he said.

Nearly a decade later, in early 2006, Spencer founded the Vista Citizens Brigade to provide other people who were frustrated by the "worsening illegal immigration problem" with a way to organize and have their voices heard.

"I ended up kind of as a de facto leader," he said, adding that he never intended to vault himself into the spotlight. "It just happens that maybe I had a little bit more time to put into it ..."

Soon after its launch, members of the brigade were frequently seen waving American flags and passing out fliers that advised potential employers not to hire illegal immigrants, at a popular day-labor hiring site in Vista ---- a parking lot at South Santa Fe and Escondido avenues.

Brigade members also lobbied to support the city's day-labor ordinance. Spencer said the ordinance "was a small step in the right direction" in the illegal immigration fight and points to Congress' approval of a 700-mile border fence and the Escondido City Council's now-abandoned attempt to enforce a rental ban ordinance as others.

The goal is to make the United States "a more unwelcoming place for illegals and make them want to return (to their homes)," he said.

In the meantime, Spencer said, the brigade will continue to raise concerns about illegal immigration.

"I almost feel grateful for the opportunity," he said. "Because even though it's a difficult thing to do ... it's an opportunity to contribute to the country and to all the people who have come before me and sacrificed immeasurably more than I will ever sacrifice to give us what we have here."

City attorney breaks new ground

By passing a controversial law that regulates employers who hire day laborers off the street, the Vista City Council this summer thrust the city into the middle of a bitter, national immigration debate. But when the media came calling, it was frequently Darold Pieper ---- the city attorney credited with crafting the ordinance ---- who became the face of Vista.

By his own tally, Pieper did three on-camera interviews, made one studio appearance, and handled between 35 and 45 interviews during a few chaotic months.

"I got a call from my brother in Atlanta who said, 'I just heard you on NPR,' " Pieper said.

While that kind of public relations work "really chews up your day," Pieper said, "I didn't mind the press attention because I thought we had a positive message to give out."

Critics have called the law a thinly veiled attempt to dry up the day-labor market, but Pieper has consistently said its purpose is to protect the workers, who are predominantly Latino, from unscrupulous employers.

The City Council members who ran for re-election this fall frequently said they passed the law to relieve the large crowds of workers that had long gathered at a central Vista shopping center. That unofficial hiring site was the catalyst for several anti-illegal immigration rallies in 2006.

The constitutionality of the law is being challenged in federal court by the California Rural Legal Assistance Inc. and the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties. Parties are scheduled to meet in January to set a case schedule.

Pieper, 61, grew up on a Navy base in the Mojave desert called China Lake. He attended law school at the University of Southern California and has worked for public agencies since the 1980s. In September 2005, he started his job in Vista.

Pieper said voter approval last month of Proposition L, a half-cent sales tax increase, "is the beginning of a new era in the city of Vista." The added revenue is expected to pay for several ambitious capital projects.

So, with plans already in the works for a new City Hall, two fire stations, a city park and a stage house at the Moonlight Amphitheatre, the city attorney's office should have its hands full.

"They all involve contract of one sort or another," Pieper said.

Sheriff's captain makes inroads

Capt. Ed Prendergast, a soft-spoken Sheriff's Department veteran of 25 years, inherited some unique challenges in April when he took over as the top law enforcement officer in Vista.

Less than a month before he arrived, the civilian panel that reviews complaints against the county's deputies and probation officers declared that the reactions to three fatal deputy-involved shootings the previous summer revealed a "growing rift with the Vista Hispanic community." And on May 1, a day filled with demonstrations for immigrant rights, some people threw bottles and rocks at deputies, prompting a riot-gear response.

Prendergast, a 52-year-old who grew up in a Bronx, N.Y., public housing project, said he spent much of 2006 bolstering community outreach and working to reduce the city's crime rate.

"We have focused a lot on the Latino community because there was the perception that they had been neglected," Prendergast said.

Recent initiatives include the formation of a Latino Advisory Committee, which brings Latino leaders together with department officials for monthly meetings, as well as Spanish language instruction for some law enforcement personnel. Deputies assigned to the community policing unit have also adopted schools where they act as liaisons and student mentors.

Prendergast said these efforts are paying off. "We've had people help us out in the street that maybe wouldn't have helped us before," he said ---- yet, some of the strategies have raised eyebrows.

In May, deputies began teaming up with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers for a series of "directed patrols" aimed at Vista's high-crime areas such as the predominantly Latino Townsite neighborhood. Critics have said the patrols foment distrust between Latino residents and law enforcement, but Prendergast said they're not about race.

"We do criminal profiling, not racial profiling," he said. "Everybody benefits from a reduction in crime."

In the last few months, that reduction appears to be happening. Prendergast said he obsessively checks his e-mail for the latest crime statistics, and in Vista, the numbers are shifting in the right direction.

In October, for example, there were 17 violent crimes in the city, whereas the average taken over six months was 33. Arrests numbered 204, down from an average of 266.

Prendergast said he hopes to direct more energy toward gang prevention in 2007.

"We're trying to re-evaluate how we do business in every way," Prendergast said.

Contact staff writer Craig TenBroeck at (760) 631-6621 or ctenbroeck@nctimes.com.