Officials Scrap Plan for Sun Valley Day Worker Center

Los Angeles officials have scuttled plans to locate a hiring center for day laborers at the Sun Valley Recreation Center in response to community opposition.

Bill Molina, a management analyst with the city’s Community Development Department, said the new location for the hiring center will probably be a vacant Department of Water and Power lot on the north side of Sherman Way between Radford and Hinds avenues in North Hollywood.

Molina said the development department hopes to get approval for the site by May 31 and to open it by June 15. The location of the Sun Valley center was announced in late April and was to have opened in mid-May.

The proposed hiring center would serve 150 to 200 laborers, mostly from Mexico and Central America, who now wait for jobs on Lankershim Boulevard between Strathern and Saticoy streets.

The center would be operated by two supervisors and would provide the men with portable toilets. While they wait for work, they could drink coffee, eat Mexican sweet bread and take classes in English, all for free. The operation would cost the city about $3,500 a month and would be in addition to the hiring center the city opened in Harbor City in October.

Laura Kallen, president of the Sun Valley Chamber of Commerce, said that after the development department announced plans to open the hiring center at the park, her organization wrote letters to members of the City Council opposing the location.

The chamber also planned to hold a community protest meeting at the park but canceled it when the development department announced it was changing its plans.

“We felt it was an inappropriate place for the facility,” said Kallen, referring to the park at 8133 Vineland Ave., a block away from San Fernando Road and Strathern Street.

“They were talking about putting it at the back side of the park, which is a rather inconspicuous area where day laborers would get no exposure and the people who wanted to hire them would have difficulty locating the facility,” she said.

“Another problem was that the site would bring traffic and trucks and commercial vehicles into a residential and recreational area,” she said. “We are not opposed to a day workers center. The problem was this particular location.”

Sun Valley resident Jon Eshbach said he had other worries.

“Our concern is that if they bring all these people to the park, if they are not picked up and don’t have a job by 10 a.m. or 11 a.m., that puts them on the streets here in downtown Sun Valley and negatively impacts businesses,” he said.

“I guess it’s the same syndrome as anywhere else,” Eshbach said. “Nobody wants them in their back yard.”

“The Chamber of Commerce and civic groups have just been able to get that park cleaned up in the last year or so,” said another resident who requested anonymity.

“We have had drug problems there. We finally got it so it’s a good place for families to go. I think those people who don’t get jobs and hang around there” could “cause a few problems,” said the resident, who said he did not want his views to appear to insult Latinos, who make up most of the workers.

Molina said a park that was accessible to both workers and employers and did not generate community opposition would make an ideal site for a hiring center. But, he agreed that the Recreation Center was not a perfect location.

He said employers would have had to go out of their way to pick up the workers and that the men, many of whom arrive at 6 a.m., would have had no bus transportation to get to the park. He also said he understood residents who said they opposed the center because the park is used by children and is located near liquor stores, which could lead to other problems and complaints.

“There was going to be some opposition and we said, ‘Let’s look at alternatives,’ ” said Molina, explaining his department’s change of plans.