Corner Job Seekers Find Criticism : Agoura Hills: City Council debates how to solve litter and traffic problems caused by day laborers who wait on the streets to be hired.

Faced with complaints from business owners and residents about day laborers soliciting work from a street corner, the Agoura Hills City Council wants to do something but is unsure what.

In a discussion Wednesday night, council members acknowledged that the daily gathering of as many as 75 laborers at Agoura and Kanan roads or other sites along Kanan Road is causing problems.

The workers litter, drink and urinate in public and create a traffic hazard when motorists stop to pick them up, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Jim Pierson told the council.

But Pierson said an outright ban on soliciting work or picking up workers on city streets probably would be ineffective and unenforceable unless the city also sets up a hiring hall or similar site where the laborers could seek work.

City Council members, however, said they were reluctant to spend city money to try to solve a problem for which they said the county should share the burden.

“I don’t know what the solution is,” Councilwoman Fran Pavley said. “Part of the issue is what is our obligation socially and financially to deal with a regional issue in our 7.9-square-mile city?”

“Why Agoura Hills?” Councilman Ed Kurtz said. “I’m just not that willing at this point in time to go out and fund a site in Agoura Hills.”

Councilwoman Louise C. Rishoff called the issue “one of these things where your social conscience and your obligation as an elected official aren’t necessarily in perfect tune.”

The council postponed the matter indefinitely to seek more information from local businesses and property owners about the extent of the problem and the feasibility of leasing a hiring-hall site.

Several other Southern California cities, such as Los Angeles, Glendale and Costa Mesa, have attempted to establish hiring sites with mixed results. A new one is to open soon in Sun Valley.

Last year, the city of Santa Clarita briefly considered banning day laborers from soliciting work on its streets but decided not to in response to lobbying by immigrants’ rights groups. But last month the Sheriff’s Department in Santa Clarita Valley stepped up patrols at a popular laborers’ gathering place after complaints by residents and businesses mounted.

At Wednesday’s Agoura Hills meeting, resident Gerard Dougherty told the council the laborers have shouted obscenities at his wife when she patronizes a nearby dry-cleaning business.

Dougherty suggested that the laborers, most of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America, “pool their resources” and rent an office to hire themselves out.

Theresa Packard, owner of a building materials store near the workers’ gathering place, said: “Most of our customers find it to be a pain. They can’t find a place to park. They’re afraid they’re going to run over someone.”