Maybe I should have paid closer attention,...

Maybe I should have paid closer attention, and I would have if I had

understood that the Job Center was in jeopardy.

I support the use of city funds for the center, and I would

certainly support participation by local businesses in paying the

expenses associated with the center.

I am a 27-year resident of Costa Mesa, and I chose Costa Mesa on

purpose. I believe we are unique among Orange County cities. I love

our variety and our diversity. And I am proud of our willingness to

embrace (or at least graciously accept) our diversity and the

different ideas, attitudes and styles that come from that diversity.

I always thought we were a kind, generous and socially progressive

city. The Job Center was an example of this. Its loss saddens me; I

believe it’s a loss to our city and to my vision of the kind of

community I believed we were and should continue to be.

CATHY HIGLEY

Costa Mesa

I strongly endorse Daily Pilot columnist Steve Smith’s position

that the Job Center should stay open. The day laborers it supports

are a vital element of Costa Mesa’s business base and a convenient

source of casual labor for the proud homeowners of our community.

The Job Center provides order and dignity for this workforce. The

alternative is undesirable loitering on our street corners and an

unnecessary added burden to our Police Department.

DAVID C. WENSLEY

Costa Mesa

I have read Steve Smith’s two columns in which he is so concerned

about the Job Center being closed, and I can’t believe this is coming

out of the same person who was so incensed when that school board

member was picked up for drunken driving and wouldn’t resign.

In other words, Steve Smith, you’re talking out of both sides of

your mouth.

JULIE DANCE

Newport Beach

I am outraged that three men on the city council have once again

ganged up in an action that seems to have no justification other than

the advancement of a Westside agenda to eliminate all services to

immigrants, no matter what the disadvantage to the community. I refer

to the closing of the Job Center.

Their excuses for this action, those I have been able to cull from

the various news articles, are nonsensical and easily refuted.

“Times have changed ... and with all the work that we’re doing on

the Westside ... it may be time to move the Job Center out,” said

Councilman Gary Monahan. The time to move the Job Center out will be

when the center’s clients have been moved out.

It will be some years before the Westside has been turned into a

mini-Newport Beach. In the meantime, there are a lot of poor people

living there, poor people who want to work. As long as they are

there, they will be looking for day jobs, and they will look in

places that are a problem for the rest of us.

Our police chief apparently thinks this is the case; he stated

that he would now have to enforce loitering laws. It costs $102,000

annually to run the job center; I think it must cost more than that

to hire and equip a single police officer. Why should we use negative

enforcement when, for less money, we can provide a positive service

that actually helps people?

Monahan said he doesn’t see the major problems today that existed

before the Job Center was opened.

Steve Smith nailed that one nicely in his column this week. We

don’t have a problem with seekers of day jobs loitering in parks and

along Placentia Avenue because we solved the problem with the Job

Center.

“There are many ways people can find a job, and I think it’s up to

the private sector to facilitate that,” Mayor Allan Mansoor said.

“It’s not something that I believe government should be involved in.”

If this is not the job of government, what is? The job of

government is to solve problems in the community that the private

sector cannot solve. The private sector is not going to open a job

center; they couldn’t make any money at it without pricing the work

force out onto the streets again.

Using an agency like Labor Ready sounds like a good idea, but if

it was a viable solution, the workers and contractors would already

be using it.

And what does the fact that contractors from outside Costa Mesa

use the Job Center have to do with anything? The purpose of the Job

Center is to get workers off the streets. It will only do that if

enough people actually get jobs there. The more employers the better,

and why should we care where they came from?

It might make sense to limit the workers at the center to Costa

Mesa residents, but since well over three-quarters of them already

are residents, it is not worth worrying about where the others come

from.

The job center was a brilliant idea that solved a problem and at

the same time had unexpected positive consequences. Not only did it

reduce loitering, but it helped the workers and it helped the

employers as well.

The loss of the job center is a major loss for our city.

DEBORAH RECTOR

Costa Mesa

I’m the “fellow” who Steve Smith says insists on letting the City

Council know how to fix the city.

We live in what should be a resident-driven, participatory

democracy. That means that residents need to let their elected

officials know what the residents want.

I try to do that as often as possible because I’m tired of seeing

all my neighbors fleeing this city and the city being driven ever

lower. I’m tired of seeing the school scores being so low. I’m tired

of the crime and the gangs. I want a nice city in which to raise my

kids. In other words I care about Costa Mesa.

Newport Beach doesn’t have a job center. That city doesn’t need

one because many Newporters, and even the Newport city government,

use ours. Statistics show that about half of the employers using the

job center give out-of-town addresses, and some who give Costa Mesa

addresses are just giving their business addresses, not their home

addresses in Newport Beach.

The Job Center’s function needs to be privatized and the city of

Costa Mesa needs to get out of the job of finding work for suspected

illegal immigrants.

Why are there so many charities on the Westside? Because they are

providing food, rent payments, medical and dental care and much more

for a growing underground economy in Costa Mesa that has grown up

around the Job Center.

Let me emphasize a point. Day workers don’t get medical or dental

insurance because those who hire them don’t supply it. So what

happens when the day workers get sick? They go to the emergency room

of Hoag Hospital or they go to the charities.

In other words, residents are supplying the medical and dental

plans for the employees of many out-of-town industrial bosses so

these out-of-town industrial bosses don’t have to supply it and can

make more money so they can continue to live in Newport Beach and

other nicer cities.

Those who are trying to keep the Job Center want to give the

impression that most of the workers are hired by elderly people in

Costa Mesa who need a day’s worth of yard work; however, even in the

Daily Pilot we read about some of these day workers getting jobs for

a year or longer.

And, as already mentioned, they don’t get medical and dental care,

and they’re not paid a living wage, so they make up the difference

and fill in the gaps from the charities. We are thus subsidizing both

the employers and their employees.

It is time that we break the downward spiral in Costa Mesa and

start dismantling what has become a machine-like system that benefits

nonresidents of Costa Mesa and is making our city far less than the

shining city on the hill that it should be.

M. H. Millard

Costa Mesa