Job center to close in June

Following an Orange County Board of Supervisors vote this week, Huntington Beach’s center for day laborers will close in June unless the city takes action.

The city’s contract with Coastline Community Colleges to run the Luis M. Ochoa Job Center will lose its validity on June 1 after supervisors voted Tuesday to cancel an agreement that says the center is handled jointly as part of county jobs programs.

County staff saw the measure as administrative housekeeping since the county doesn’t fund the center, said Andrew Munoz, manager of community investment for the county. Munoz said county officials prefer operating regional centers and wanted to cancel even nonbinding statements that said the county was responsible for a particular city service.

County Supervisor John Moorlach said he didn’t see the vote as a big deal, and he hadn’t heard complaints from Huntington Beach. He was surprised to hear the city might have difficulties.

“No one from Huntington Beach, as far as I know, called,” he said. If they had, “I would have [taken it off the consent calendar] in a heartbeat because it’s so simple. If they have a problem we can either put it back on the agenda or, you name it.”

The center, on Gothard Street, might have to close as staff and council members scramble for a new vendor, said Jim Lamb, project manager for the city’s Economic Development Department. He said without the county memorandum, the city would likely have to open up the management contract to bids, which might take longer than June 1.

“We would have to have it closed down temporarily, closed down permanently, or by then have selected a new vendor,” Lamb said. “This very important issue is clearly a council, policy-level decision.”

One silver lining is that the city may ask for an extension past June 1 to find a new organization to run the center. Lamb said that would be important to avoid having the thousands of day laborers who go to the center each year moving to street corners and hardware stores.

People came to the center 9,864 times in 2006, he said; of those, 59% found a job that day.

“This is not a mobile group of people,” Lamb said. “These people tend to go to the nearest location they can get a job. If that turns out to be a Home Depot parking lot, they’ll go there.”

The nearest county-run job center is in Westminster, Munoz said. But it does not handle day laborers because day labor centers ask for less proof of identification than county job centers.

“Our federal regulations prohibit that,” he said.

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