BETWEEN THE LINES -- Byron de Arakal

On occasional mornings in my household, I’ll receive a dispatch from

the supply sergeant (read: wife) even as she remains firmly hunkered

down, mildly comatose, beneath the covers. And the order is conveyed in a

single word.

“Milk,” she’ll say.

This means I’m to head to the Vons in Mesa Verde Center and acquire

four gallons of 2% low fat. I’m then to return to the barracks -- milk in

hand -- before the grunts rise. This way, we avoid those cranky

“Mom-there’s-no-milk” insurrections.

Now, I don’t normally noodle much on issues confronting Costa Mesa

while out stumbling around town this early in the morning. But on a dawn

milk mission in late August, the thorny debate over the city’s Job Center

took a seat squarely in the middle of my thinking. That’s because I was

greeted at the Mesa Verde Vons by a half dozen laborers camped out

looking for some work.

My memory recalls that it was in October of 1988 when the city --

blistered by angry residents protesting the daily encampment of day

laborers in Lions Park -- transformed a ramshackle gas station into a

kind of open-air market for job seekers. The idea was to give day

laborers a central place to go to find some work and make a buck. For

folks with odd jobs to be done, the center would make it easy to track

down temporary -- and yes, cheap -- labor.

In either case, the Job Center was supposed to be the city’s solution

for sweeping the town’s streets, parks and storefronts of loitering job

hunters.

It hasn’t worked. And the more I think about it, I’m pretty sure that

it never will. The reasons are both obvious and subtle, which we’ll get

to in a moment.

Meantime, witnessing the various platoons of day laborers popping up

throughout the city (hardly an image Costa Mesa wants to trumpet), and

knowing the Job Center dings Costa Mesa’s wallet for $130,000 every year,

it’s probably time the center be given the pink slip.

It’s clear to me the Costa Mesa Job Center -- beyond its very early

success -- is failing its original mission. Aside from the various chaps

I now regularly spot sitting and standing outside my neighborhood

supermarket, other concerned residents have documented day laborers

loitering by the dozens in front of storefronts and businesses from the

Westside to the Eastside.

Which then raises the question: Why does such a small gaggle of

laborers seek work at the Job Center, while a growing number shuffle

around parking lots and strip malls hoping for a gig?

One theory is that the burgeoning population of day laborers steer

clear of the Job Center because many, if not most, are residing in the

United States illegally and see the center’s requirement for proof of

legal residency as a guaranteed deportation ticket.

So they look for work, increasingly, in the city’s nooks and crannies

where no forms and no proof of legal status are demanded of them. And

often they take up their positions on private property where the city has

no jurisdiction to remove them for loitering.

I’ve got to think that the ballooning legions of immigrant workers

throughout the city make the Job Center less attractive for the folks who

give these guys jobs too. A street-corner hire is quicker, cheaper (an

immigrant worker with no legal status isn’t in a position to demand a

living wage), formless (no I-9s and W4s) and clandestine.

All of which brings me back to the argument that it’s time for the

city to shutter the Costa Mesa Job Center. Which is a timely conclusion,

I think. In its latest go-round over what to do with the center, the

Costa Mesa City Council -- while stopping short of shuttering the place

-- gave its staff roughly 60 days to cobble together more options for

improving the center’s operations. Among them should be a reexamination

of shutting the Job Center down.

Doing that won’t leave legal immigrants seeking legitimate work

without options. The California Employment Development Department

operates a number of full-service job centers in Orange County.

Established under the 1998 Workforce Investment Act, the centers offer an

array of skills development, training, job placement and other employment

services free of charge. And the good news is one of these employment

centers is located on Scenic Avenue in Costa Mesa.

Turning the lights out on the Job Center won’t stem the proliferation

of loitering day laborers, but it will save the city $130,000 a year.

Solving the other problem means the City Council -- which recently

retooled the city’s ordinance banning certain public solicitations for

employment -- should follow the lead of the city of Orange, which

aggressively enforces its no-public-solicitation laws by turning over

workers in the United States who are here illegally to the U.S. Border

Patrol.

* BYRON DE ARAKAL is a writer and communications consultant. He lives

in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays. Readers may reach him with

news tips and comments via e-mail at byronwriter@msn.com.