City Job Center target of protest

Opponents of day labor site rally in the canyon and the council chamber.A group opposed to the city’s Job Center in Laguna Canyon rallied at the site Saturday and again Tuesday night in the City Council chambers as part of a nationwide campaign against day labor centers and the hiring of unauthorized workers.

The job center opponents, including Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, asked the council to close the center, which they said is a magnet for the illegal immigrants who are “colonizing” the country.

“We are here to ask you to shut it down,” said Arne Chandler, a resident of Riverside County. “You are part of the problem.”

Chandler was one of 11 men and women who spoke to the council in opposition to the site, more than half of them from outside the city.

Besides voicing opposition to the city sponsorship of the center and making assertions that illegal immigrants rape, steal and murder -- as well as take jobs from Americans by driving down the pay scale -- several of the opponents at the meeting complimented the Police Department for its conduct Saturday during the protest at the center.

Gilchrist said the department protected the constitutional right to assemble.

“There would have been violence if not for the Police Department,” said Laguna Beach resident Dave Connell, who opposes the site. “The supporters were idiots.”

George Riviere of Laguna Beach said the rally was mostly civil, except for some impolite gestures by occupants of a passing vehicle.

“They called us racists, and they didn’t even know us,” Riviere said.

“Someone needs to get up and speak out against the poison spewed out here tonight,” said attorney Gene Gratz, who was at the City Council meeting for another matter but decided to speak in favor of the job center.

Gratz said the attack on the legality of the day labor site was a political ploy by a failed political candidate -- Gilchrist, who recently lost a race for a U.S. House seat -- to gain a following.

The center, Gratz said, was established for the benefit of local residents.

“It has worked fabulously,” he said. “You [the council] are not charged with policing immigration. You are charged to keep the city clean and healthy, and that is what you did.”

Center opponents applauded one another at the conclusion of their allotted three minutes at the podium during the public input period and hooted at speakers who disagreed with their point of view -- especially Gratz’s impassioned, off-the-cuff remonstrance.

“You had your turn, now it is his,” Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider said. “If you can’t be quiet, you can leave.”

Resident Mary Dolphin, often the city’s severest critic, complimented the council on establishing the site, where she has taught English and hired laborers.

The day labor site was established by the council to eliminate the need for workers to gather on residential streets to seek work.

Organized and administered by the Cross Cultural Council, the center is funded by donations and grants, including a city Community Assistance Fund grant.

Eileen Garcia of Laguna Beach said the funding is illegal because the laborers are here illegally.

The city has maintained that the laborers legal status is the concern of the federal government, not the province of local law enforcement.

“We would need reasonable suspicion to ask to see immigration papers,” veteran police Sgt. George Ramos said. “Ninety percent of the time, if you just ask if they are in the country illegally, they will tell you the truth.”

Businesswoman Andra Sachs said she frequently hires day laborers from the site and has never had a bad experience.