EDITORIAL: Labor site back from the brink

What anti-illegal immigration activists couldn’t accomplish, the economy almost did.

Laguna’s organized Day Labor Site almost had to close up shop last week, and without a last-minute financial boost from the laborers themselves — in the form of a doubling of their fees — there would be no one at the site today to mediate between job-seekers and employers.

Not that laborers wouldn’t be going there to solicit work; that tiny, 19,000-square-foot parcel is the only place it is legal in Laguna Beach to offer day labor services.

But without the organizational backup of the labor site staff — who take names, collect fees and generally keep order — the same problems that plague other ad hoc gathering-spots would return: Laborers would be competing willy-nilly for work, chasing down vehicles and running amok on Laguna Canyon Road. It’s not a pretty picture to envision and would be a public safety nightmare.

The center has been “on the brink” for a while. The Cross Cultural Council relies on donors for about half of the income necessary to keep the operation going, and made a pitch for donations a few months ago. In January, organizers requested $7,000 in extra funding from the City Council, which had already given $20,000 to the group for the fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30. In short, the center had run out of cash in the middle of its fiscal year, mostly due to the multipronged economic downturn we are now in.

Adding to the woes from this prolonged economic slump, the center has had to defend itself against a lawsuit seeking to pull the plug on the city’s funding of the facility. The city has reportedly spent $75,000 so far to defend the suit, brought by Laguna Beach residents Eileen Garcia and her husband, George Riviere, who believe the center should be shut down because it could serve people who are not legally allowed to work in the U.S.

Garcia and Riviere have appealed a Superior Court ruling upholding the city’s funding of the center, so another huge legal bill is in the offing. City officials can’t be expected to fork over large amounts of taxpayer money to keep the site from going under when huge legal bills are staring them in the face.

On another front, the site appears to be on track for purchase by the city from Caltrans, after state Sen. Tom Harman’s failed attempt to derail the land deal.

Harman has accused the city of “highway robbery” by offering $18,000 for the parcel, when Caltrans had previously thought the site should net them $1.2 million.

Once the purchase deal is inked in May, as expected, then it will be interesting to see what happens next in the roller-coaster saga of the Day Labor Site.