Encinitas OKs Hiring Hall for Migrants

The Encinitas City Council on Wednesday night voted unanimously to build a temporary labor hiring hall for potentially hundreds of migrant workers, making it the first such hall in San Diego County.

The council put off for at least a week, however, a vote on a proposed ordinance that would make it illegal for employers to solicit workers along city streets.

The temporary hiring hall will be east of El Camino Real near Olivenhain Road, across from a flower stand where scores of migrant workers gather each day seeking work. The land is owned by the billionaire Hunt brothers of Texas.

Not in Response to Suit

City officials stressed that the move to create the hiring hall was not in response to a lawsuit filed last month by an advocacy group on behalf of six migrants who claimed they could not find suitable housing in the city.

The suit, filed by California Rural Legal Assistance, claimed that the city was dragging its heels on several issues concerning migrant housing, including the development of an emergency shelter for the homeless.

Although the council approved the concept of a hiring hall in April, actual approval had been delayed until a suitable site was found. Before Wednesday’s meeting, officials had targeted two potential sites, both along El Camino Real near Olivenhain Road. One is owned by flower grower Paul Ecke Sr. and the other by the Texas-based Hunt brothers.

Both sites are under county jurisdiction, outside Encinitas city limits.

“It’s typical of the way the city has approached this problem,” said the Rev. Rafael Martinez, executive director of North County Champlaincy, a social service group for domestic and migrant Latino laborers.

“To come up with a solution that is, in effect, located in somebody else’s back yard is just their style.”

Encinitas Deputy Mayor Pam Slater said the purpose of the hiring hall is to clear the streets of workers and prevent accidents.

“We want people to stop using the street. It’s dangerous and it impacts businesses to have them there.”

The hall, however, would also help protect workers by ensuring their salaries, she added.

“Many times, these people work two or three days and then never get paid for the work they do,” she said. “Under our program, everyone who wants to hire one of these workers will have to give their name and address so we have some sort of record of them.”

A Step Backward?

Martinez said the city is taking one step forward with the hiring hall--and one step back with its consideration of the street-hiring ordinance.

“It’s a good thing the city is making an effort to help people find work,” he said. “I just wished they’d give their own efforts a chance, to show they have faith in their own solution to the problem.

‘Will Hurt the Workers’

“If this hall is as good as they say, it will take care of the problem. They don’t need the proposed ordinance. It will hurt the workers. It’s not a good thing.”

Maritnez questioned whether one hall will be enough to handle the number of migrants seeking daily work in Encinitas.

“I just don’t see how one hall in one location, staffed by just two people, can possibly be adequate,” he said. “There’s just too many workers.”

The hall, which will be open 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday, will be a covered shelter directed by Gloria Carranza, the city’s transients’ issues coordinator.

Carranza said the $95,000 allocated for the shelter will cover construction and be used to hire a bilingual assistant and cover operating expenses of $1,800 a month. Land for the temporary facility will be leased for up to five years.

Time will tell, she said, whether one center will suffice.

“We won’t know until we get the thing going,” she said. “Rev. Martinez might be right. And wouldn’t that be nice, to find employment for everyone on the streets?”’

Bob LaMarsh, Encinitas fire chief, said the ordinance is not intended to drive migrants from the streets. “The law is aimed at solicitors, the people who might pull over into a bike lane or stop and impede traffic.”

City Manager Warren Schafer said the proposed ordinance was being reviewed by the Sheriff’s Department and would be ready for a council vote, at earliest, by next week.