On the eve of closure

The Job Center closes today. Some laborers will leave area; others will find new places in town to seek work.COSTA MESA -- Today is the beginning of an uncertain time for workers who use the city’s Job Center.

At 11 a.m., the center closes for good after 17 years of operation. The City Council chose earlier this year to shutter the facility, which connects day laborers and employers. At the time, Mayor Allan Mansoor said employment services should be provided by the private sector, not the government.

Without the center, workers will be forced to move on, and for Joel Morales that could mean moving away. Morales, 34, said Friday he might pull up stakes and go to Las Vegas, Idaho or Nashville.

He’s been the Job Center since he graduated from Estancia High School, he said -- he dropped out of college to get a job when his girlfriend became pregnant.

Finding long-term work has been hard for Morales because it often doesn’t pay well, he said.

“It’s not enough money to make a living out of it. The rent is expensive,” he said.

Some of his friends at the Job Center will try to get work at a center they’ve heard about in Laguna Niguel, Morales said.

Delphino Rohas, 65, is worried for his friends, but not on his own account since he recently found a permanent job.

Workers who don’t have citizenship papers or who don’t speak English have the most trouble, he said.

“It’s terrible for us,” he said. “Most people tomorrow or maybe next week [will go] around the Home Depot or around the 7-Eleven looking for jobs.”

Already workers have started to disperse, Rohas said.

“I saw 10 guys looking for work” on Thursday at 19th Street and Monrovia Avenue, he said.

It was workers loitering in Lions Park and elsewhere that prompted the city to open the Job Center, and some fear that problem will resume.

“Our patrol officers have been informed that because the Job Center is closing, they [workers] may start congregating in places that they used to, so they’ve been asked to monitor those places,” Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Marty Carver said.

Otherwise, no special provisions have been made, he said. Loitering and related offenses are misdemeanors and often are handled like a ticket, Carver said. Officers don’t usually arrest people for loitering or soliciting work unless they don’t have identification.

“It hasn’t been a big problem yet, so we hope it won’t,” he said.

While some have wanted the center to close, it apparently hasn’t been a problem for one of its nearest neighbors, Maricela Covarrubias. Her family has lived for 90 years in a home at the corner of 17th Avenue and Babcock Street, a block from the center.

“We have no problems with them at all,” Covarrubias said.

At the Job Center, it’s organized, and she’s never heard any complaints about rowdy behavior, she said.

“I prefer to see them there than to see them at the park or the Home Depot or the 7-Eleven,” she said.

Even as the Job Center is closing, it could be the beginning of new initiatives for day laborers and for Latinos, who make up a majority of the center’s users.

The League of United Latin American Citizens hopes to reestablish a council in Costa Mesa, mainly to address issues like the Job Center and a proposal to locally enforce immigration laws, said Gilbert Flores, deputy district director for the group’s Orange County branch.

“People have expressed interest in forming a ... council that will work positively with the city because the members will be from Costa Mesa,” Flores said.

The group had a council in the city between 1999 and 2001, but when the organizer moved out of town, the council fizzled out.

But people have started paying more attention to Costa Mesa politics, after the council in December voted to train city police to enforce immigration laws.

As for the workers, other plans are in the works. Costa Mesa resident William Holiday is trying to develop a “virtual job center,” using a phone system to help laborers find jobs.

A group of businesses, churches and other organizations is working on opening a privately run and funded job center that would offer a range of training and services, but the group is still looking for a location.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at alicia.robinson@latimes.com.

20051231isc7kjncDOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Delphino Rohas, right, on Friday picks up chairs workers sit in while waiting for jobs. Costa Mesa’s Job Center closes for good today.20051231isci7uncDOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Costa Mesa Job Center employee Mireya Becerra on Friday takes a day laborer’s number after the worker received an assignment.