STANTON : City, 10 Others Aim for Job-Training Role

Hoping to head off a county takeover of local job-training programs, the City Council has joined with 10 neighboring cities to apply for designation as an independent program area for the northwest portion of the county.

The City Council this week became the 11th city to pass a resolution supporting the application of the cities of La Habra and Garden Grove for designation as a separate Service Delivery Area. The resolution also requests that La Habra--on behalf of the Northwest Orange County Group of cities that includes Brea, Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, La Habra, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Placentia, Stanton, Yorba Linda, and the unincorporated areas within their spheres of influence--continue to administer employment and training programs within their communities.

Originally the federal Job Training Partnership Act was administered for the entire county through a joint-powers agreement consisting of the county, Anaheim, Santa Ana and Garden Grove, with La Habra acting as lead city for the 10-city Northwest Group. Anaheim and Garden Grove have since withdrawn from the joint-powers agreement to form independent programs, which left Garden Grove, La Habra and its informal consortium, and what was known as the “balance of the county” to operate separate but equal programs within the county’s SDA.

The flurry of resolutions from the Northwest Group and Garden Grove comes in response to the county’s application to the state last month to administer all employment and job-training programs under the federal Job Training Partnership Act for the entire county, except for Anaheim and Santa Ana.

“We obviously like being able to control our own destiny,” said Greg Beaubien, Stanton’s assistant city manager, who added that the city has been satisfied with the service it has been getting through the Northwest Group.

Employment and job-training programs have been available to Stanton residents for the last 15 years under an informal cooperative agreement with the city of La Habra to administer the federally funded programs within the 10-city Northwest Group. According to the Job Training Partnership Act activity report for the last fiscal year, more than 450 Stanton residents have been enrolled in the locally administered job-training programs since 1984.

Like Stanton, the cities that form the consortium, Beaubien said, are small cities that provide the same types of services to residents. The fear among the members of the Northwest Group is that if the administration of the programs is handed over to the county, there is the concern that smaller cities such as Stanton may get “lost in the larger concept,” Beaubien said.

According to Ron Faulkner, program coordinator for La Habra’s employment and training department, labor and employment markets differ drastically from one end of the county to the other, with the North County’s focus mostly on smaller manufacturing, service and retail jobs, while the South County’s employment mainstay is large, high-tech industries.

Given the diversity in labor markets, Faulkner said the concern is that because of geographic and manpower constraints, the county would not be able to cater to the needs of the individual communities as the present system now does.

“We know what’s needed in our own back yard,” Faulkner said. The state decided Thursday to consolidate local job-training programs under the county’s administration, but the city of La Habra said it would appeal the decision.