NEW JOB CENTER?
(Plan carefully, watch the details, have a bailout ready)
PROBLEMS WITH THE LAST JOB CENTER
1. It was on the Westside for far too long (17 years) and helped keep the area downscale. It was also part of the illegal alien "Barrio" infrastructure that some brown racists and their enablers wanted (and still want) the Westside to be turned into. They saw/see the Westside as an exclusively Latino city within a city.
2. Illegal aliens used the center. ID was not properly checked. The CM PRESS went undercover and stood in line with day workers one day. We wrote about this a couple of years ago. We could have written a phony ID card with crayon on a bubblegum wrapper saying we were Speedy Gonzalez and we would have been approved.
3. Approximately 50% of the employers were from Newport Beach (we checked the stats), yet only Costa Mesa citizens paid for it (in more ways than one).
4. It acted as a magnet for day workers from all over the county. Once they were here and saw how welcoming Costa Mesa was, many probably decided to move into the nearby slums. You may recall that a long time Daily Pilot employee was stabbed to death by an illegal alien who was living in the Shalimar slum and who presumably was finding work at the job center down the block.
5. Day workers still loitered on our streets and in parking lots looking for work.
6. It served as a communication center for illegal aliens who learned about non-profits in the city that would help them move to Costa Mesa, would help pay their rent, would help pay their utilities, would provide day care for their children, would give them free medical and dental care, would give them free bags of groceries, would give them free clothes.
IF A NEW JOB CENTER IS OPENED:
1. Put it at the end of East 17th Street near Newport Beach's Dover Shores. An attempt to put it there should be funny to watch as the NIMBYs who want the Westside to be a Barrio, scream and yell about not wanting their neighborhood being turned into a Barrio.
Remember, the old job center was on W. 17th and near the Newport Beach border and employers from that city, so E. 17th makes a lot of sense. It's the same street and just as close to Newport Beach employers.
2. Make sure that those who use it can prove they have a legal right to work in the U.S.
3. Pass the cost on to the workers and their employers, not the citizens of Costa Mesa.
4. Don't sign any long term leases on the property, so we can bail out if it doesn't work. And, if we do open a new job center, plan on rotating it around the city every couple of years so that no one neighborhood is unduly impacted.
5. This time, be sure the CMPD will actually enforce our laws and cite those who still seek work on our streets and from parking lots. And, if those cited can't show proof of citizenship, make sure the cops bring them to be interviewed by the ICE agent.
6. Don't let the job center undergo a mission creep to offer classes in English, etc.
7. Make sure the job center is a bare bones operation.
8. Be sure any new municipal codes are for a proper purpose, such as safety.
POSSIBLE LEGAL CHALLENGES
The legal challenges to cities and their municipal codes involving work solicitation and loitering are all based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as it has been interpreted by case law.
Basically, under current law, you can't simply tell people that they can't stand around and look for work anyplace in a city.
If you want to tell people that they can't stand around and look for work on streets and in parking lots, then there needs to be a "reasonable time, place and manner," for them to find work. In this context, this usually means some sort of job center.
Costa Mesa should have no problem with the "reasonable time," and "reasonable manner" requirements, because the City has experience from the old job center in meeting these requirements.
However, the "reasonable place," requirement is more knotty and is where the legal fight (expect one) will likely take place.
Such a legal fight might look a little like this: A day worker, cited by the CMPD for looking for work on a street corner or parking lot, will sue the city saying that he tried the new job center, but that not enough employers are using it--which indicates that it is not a reasonable place. So, to get work, this worker has gone back to where he has a chance of being hired--a street corner or parking lot.
Before a new job center is opened, we hope the City Council will consider all of the above and will make sure the legal work is done correctly.
We also hope that Mayor Bever is not being stampeded into doing something rash as a result of the false praise being heaped on him by the Return to Reason crowd who want the Westside to become a permanent Latino Barrio.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
