Suit challenges Labor Center funding

Two Laguna Beach residents have launched a lawsuit against the City of Laguna Beach seeking to shut down the Day Labor Center on Laguna Canyon Road.

Eileen Garcia and George Riviere have campaigned for about a year against the center, which they criticize as allegedly serving illegal immigrants.

Judicial Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative group, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Santa Ana Superior Court on behalf of the couple, seeking to halt all taxpayer funding of the center.

The suit claims that the city funding violates federal law because the operators of the center do not ascertain the immigration status or right to work of those who come to the center seeking jobs.

City Manager Ken Frank said Wednesday that the city has not been served the suit, but he believes the center is operating legally.

Frank said the city gave $22,000 in the last fiscal year to the Cross Cultural Council, a group that operates the center, and the city also pays for portable toilets and other items at the center.

“The lawsuit is short-sighted and not in the best interest of the city,” Frank said. “This [center] is a public service.”

The city began supporting the center about a decade ago, after complaints from residents about laborers congregating on city streets and in shopping areas seeking work.

The Cross-Cultural Council oversees the operation, which charges $1 a day to the laborers and $5 to the employers, and matches employers with laborers who can fill their needs. The laborers make an average of $10 an hour.

On Wednesday morning, the center was operating as usual, and 22 laborers had been given jobs through its offices, labor center operator Irma Ronses said.

Laborer Victor Lopez said that, if the center is shut down, he would seek work at another designated labor center. Looking for jobs on the streets “is no bueno,” he said.

Another man, who declined to give his name, said he would probably solicit work on the streets or at a Home Depot.

Frank said that, if the city is stopped from funding the operation of the center, the site would still be the only location in Laguna Beach where laborers can legally solicit work, but no one would provide intermediary services to the laborers and employers.

“This [the labor center] is the only place in the city where we allow day laborers to congregate,” Frank said.

“If we can’t have an organized center, it will go back to chaos. This is public property and they have a right to be on it.

“We are trying to deal with the real world.”

Frank noted that some of problems that occurred prior to the organized day-labor center included laborers urinating in bushes, cat-calling passing women, and thronging onto roads after prospective employers.

The city has a law prohibiting the solicitation of work except in the area covered by the Day Labor Center. Frank said that, without a designated area, the ordinance against solicitation elsewhere could be challenged in court, opening up the city to a free-for-all for labor-seekers.

Frank added that private parties have come forward offering to pay for the labor center operation if the city is unable to use taxpayer funds.

Judicial Watch, which claims to target government corruption, says it has filed some 150 lawsuits all over the country, including one against the town of Herndon, Virginia over a day labor site. The group has also sued Cuba, the State of Vermont, the U.S. Senate and the Dept. of Defense, among other entities.

Garcia and Riviere did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.