Councilman Proposes Relocating Moorpark Day Laborers to City Site

MOORPARK —  It seems most everybody in town agrees with the mayor here when he says the town’s day laborer problem is “a sticky situation that needs to be dealt with.”

Men crowding in front of a corner market looking for work each day are scaring off shoppers from the city’s downtown, local merchants say.

They complain about harassing catcalls when women walk by, and men relieving themselves on buildings and bushes.

The laborers say they are being tagged by the actions of a few bad apples and that they are just looking for work, while Moorpark City Council members say they are in the middle--unsure what they can do to clean up the situation while protecting the workers’ constitutional rights.

This week City Councilman Bernardo Perez officially weighed in with a plan of his own to deal with the problem. Perez wants to move the men to a city-owned warehouse downtown.

The site would have bathrooms and is screened from the street by landscaping and a fence. In the afternoon, when the day laborers usually have given up hope of finding work for the day, the building could house an after-school program that is now looking for space.

“I think it could work,” Perez said. “I’ve already talked to some downtown merchants who said they would support the idea.”

In a memo to his fellow council members, Perez said “admittedly a lot of details remain to be determined and finalized, however, I hope that the report provides sufficient information for fruitful discussion.”

But Perez’s fellow council members are, at this stage, lukewarm on the idea, saying it could cost a bundle to renovate the old warehouse.

Mayor Paul Lawrason reserved judgment on the plan but said the idea of spending a lot to renovate the building is not attractive to him.

“I think that building needs extensive modifications done,” Lawrason said. “I would like to address this with little or no taxpayer expense; that’s a big consideration for me.”

Three years ago the city tried to move the laborers to a designated spot in front of City Hall after studying the problem for more than a year. Within a few months the workers went back to the corner because those doing the hiring were not using the new location. Perez said that earlier effort failed, in part, because the city was not willing to spend the money needed to make it work.

But other officials have faulted the laborers and employers for that plan’s failure, and they also do not support spending city money to solve the problem.

Councilwoman Eloise Brown said she also is wary of spending a lot of city money on the situation. She reserved further comment until discussing the issue with the council.

Brown said she also had ideas of how to deal with the day laborers. She would not elaborate except to say it would require a lot of participation from the workers and employers.

The City Council met in early May with merchants and day laborers to discuss the matter.

At that meeting ideas included cracking down on illegal immigrants among the crowd, pushing all the men out by enacting an ordinance that outlaws gathering on the street to solicit work, and providing an alternative site with bathrooms, a telephone and a job board.

Lawrason said he is interested in the example of Augora Hills, which five years ago passed an ordinance prohibiting day laborers from soliciting work on public streets.

The council is scheduled to discuss the issue June 5.