Protest decries day labor site

Suzie Harrison

In an ongoing campaign, opponents of illegal immigration staged a

protest Saturday on Laguna Canyon Road, near Art-A-Fair, to oppose

city funding of the Job Center, a day labor site.

The group plans to protest at the Job Center on July 30, according

to its website.

Saturday, a scuffle between a demonstrator and a

counter-demonstrator resulted in a knife being confiscated from a

demonstrator, but no arrests were made, police said.

The protest took place less than a half-mile from the day labor

site, in the vicinity of Laguna’s three arts festivals.

The protesters say that money to fund the day labor center comes

from the Festival of Arts. About 100 protesters carried signs and

shouted demands that the city stop funding the day labor site.

Signs with messages such as “Laguna funds illegal aliens, unfair

for US workers,” “Deport illegal aliens,” “I defend our borders,”

“Hiring illegal aliens is illegal and un-American, go home” were

waved.

Attendees of the arts festivals appeared bewildered by the group,

which dominated the sidewalk but did not appear to disrupt operations

at any of the three festivals under way.

Members of the Save Our State group, which is mounting protests

all over the region, showed up in large numbers. Information about

the protest was posted on https://www.saveourstate.org, urging members

to make signs and be heard.

A small group of five to six counter-demonstrators gathered on the

opposite side of the road with signs, one of which read, “Stop the

Hate.”

Laguna Beach artist and resident David Milton saw the protest and

was not pleased, especially with some of the demonstrators’ antics.

“To me this is like performance art -- these are the same people

who are for the death penalty and denying a woman’s right to choose;

you can’t talk to them,” Milton said.

Milton passed out fliers with images of hardware nuts that read,

“Use common sense, don’t pay attention to nuts, right wing nuts.”

City officials said the Festival of Arts has nothing to do with

the Job Center, where people may go to get temporary work.

“The festival has no control over it and is not involved in any

way shape or form,” City Manager Ken Frank said.

The festival’s lease money goes into the City’s general fund.

“The lease with the Festival of Arts is a percentage of gross

receipts; it has been about $175,000 the last few years,” Frank said.

“The City Council sets aside that money to go toward community

agencies.”

The council has made a commitment that whatever money is received

is placed in an account and divvied up among community agencies. This

fund is called the Community Assistance Fund, Frank explained.

One of the recipients is the Job Center, which is run by the Cross

Cultural Task Force.

“The Cross Cultural Task Force manages the day labor center and

the City Council likes it -- before, we had people soliciting

throughout the city, all over; it was a mess,” Frank said.

In 1993, the city council passed an ordinance to have a day labor

area in an industrial zone. The Cross Cultural Task Force coordinates

the program.

“Now I don’t have to worry about it or run it,” Frank said. “It’s

well run, and that’s why the city funds it. The fact is, people are

looking for work and people are hiring them. It’s better to have a

supervised facility.”

Frank added that because the Cross Cultural Task Force is a

nonprofit the City pays less than it would to run the center itself.

He said the Task Force raises half of its funding.

Frank said he has never heard any complaints from Laguna residents

about the Job Center.

“The allegations that it’s illegal; it’s been operating through

the task force for something like 10 years,” he said. “Frankly, the

complaints are coming from outside the community. There’s a political

agenda, and that’s their right.”

Co-protest organizer and Laguna Beach resident Eileen Garcia and

her husband George Riviere said they were the only two Laguna

residents protesting against the day labor center.

“Today we’re targeting the city of Laguna Beach because it funds

an illegal hiring site, and they get their money through the Festival

of Arts,” Garcia said.

Garcia said she would take the same position if city funds were

used to facilitate illegal marijuana farms or prostitution.

Co-organizer Robin Hvidston from Upland said they have had three

protests at the day labor site, calling it a modern slave industry.

“My biggest contention in Laguna is that ... [the day labor site

is] funded by city taxpayers,” Hvidston said. “One of our issues is

that they have no payroll tax deductions.”

The protest drew some well-known activists in the fight against

illegal immigration.

They included Barbara Coe, who helped write Proposition 187, a

1994 proposition to deny illegal immigrants social services,

healthcare and public education; James Gilchrist, founder of the

Minuteman Project, a citizen border control group; and Michael

Jackson, 2006 California State Assembly Candidate for District 54 and

an illegal immigration opponent.

Garcia, Riviere and Hvidston also spoke at Tuesday’s City Council

meeting along with a few others who attended the protest and who live

outside Laguna. They reiterated some of what was said at the

demonstration.

Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider commented afterward that no

taxpayer dollars go to the day labor hiring center.

“Prior to Saturday’s demonstration, we notified the organizers

that they had apparently misunderstood the facts, and provided

contact information, asking them to call us so we could clear up this

misunderstanding,” said Sharbie Higuchi, Festival of Arts Director of

Marketing and Public Relations.

Higuchi said they did not hear a response to the offer to

facilitate a more accurate understanding of the situation, just a

note referencing a quote in the newspaper from the chairman of the

Cross Cultural Council that suggested that festival funds go to the

Job Center.

“We can’t speak for Mr. Peck or his organization, but the Festival

is not engaged in raising any such funds, nor do we have any say in

choosing which local organizations receive funding through any

city-based granting program,” Higuchi said.

During the demonstration, anti-illegal-immigration activist Robert

Floyd of Pearblossom was wrestled to the ground by officers Andy Peck

and Ryan Dossett after Floyd and two others ran across Laguna Canyon

Road, against police orders, to confront Naui Huitzilopochtli, one of

six counter-protesters.

“Then two guys began to attack me; this one guy had a knife,”

Huitzilopochtli alleged.

Laguna Beach Police Captain Danell Adams said a pocket knife was

confiscated “as a precaution.”

She said the pocket knife was not seen as a threat, so no arrest

was made.

“What we try to do is respect people’s right to demonstrate,”

Adams said. “We’re hesitant to become involved and seek out arrest if

they comply with the law.”

QUESTION

Do day labor centers foster illegal immigration? Write us at P.O.

Box 248, Laguna Beach, CA, 92652, e-mail us at coastlinepilot@

latimes.com or fax us at 494-8979. Please give your name and tell

us your home address and phone number for verification purposes only.