Land Could Prove Barrier to Migrant Hiring Hall : Workers: The New Encinitas Community Action Board could refuse to renew a land-use permit. If that happens, the City Council says it might reconsider its support of the embattled operation.

Encinitas city officials said Thursday that the future of their embattled migrant hiring hall is still cloudy, despite a council decision to extend its funding for another six months. In a unanimous decision, the council Wednesday earmarked $34,150 for continued operation of the hall--a portable mobile home on a rural stretch of El Camino Real at Olivenhain Road.

Next month, however, the city’s land-use permit for the parcel of private property expires. And, if the New Encinitas Community Action Board follows its predictions by refusing to renew the permit, the city will be forced to find a new site for its hall.

In that case, according to Councilwoman Gail Hano, the council would reconsider its backing for the hiring hall, the first of its kind in San Diego County.

“We’ve been given six more months,” said Gloria Carranza, the city’s transients issues coordinator. “But we still have some real barriers along the way.”

Carranza said her office will try to place the hiring hall issue on the community action board’s Sept. 17 agenda and hope for the best.

“There are several possible steps to renewing the OK for the hall,” she said. “From the community action board, it goes to the city Planning Commission and then the council. If anyone votes it down, our office will appeal the matter to the next higher group.”

On Wednesday, the council also approved funding for Carranza’s $56,650 annual salary for the next fiscal year as well as $40,000 for a program in which the city would help shoulder the cleanup costs for residents living near migrant encampments.

Despite mounting criticism of the hall, which seeks to find employment in the community for documented workers, Carranza said people are landing jobs through the controversial program, which began last November.

Statistics show that 53%--or 27--of the 53 people who use the hall on average each day find work. On Thursday, the day after the council’s decision, 53 of 64 workers who showed up at the site landed a day job, she said.

Councilwoman Hano on Thursday, however, asked at what price the city is helping documented workers find work. She said the city has at least two other sites in mind if the community action board votes down the present location on land owned by the Hunt Bros. developers of Texas.

One of those, she said, is property owned by local poinsettia grower Paul Ecke, situated directly across El Camino Real from the present site. The second site, which she declined to specify, is publicly owned.

“I can see the community action board turning it down,” Hano said. “It was supposed to be a temporary use of that property, and there’s worry that it’s becoming permanent. Unfortunately, the NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) factor comes into play as well.”

A negative vote from the community action board could spell disaster for the fledgling hiring hall.

“If we’re forced to move the hall, then I’m taking my vote for continued funding back,” Hano said. “Because, if we have to clear new property, the operating costs will go up.”

Anne Patton, chairwoman of the New Encinitas Community Action Board, said Thursday she couldn’t comment on which direction the board might take.

Migrant advocates, many of whom have been critical of the hiring hall’s scope of only helping documented workers, say they aren’t holding their breath to see how the matter turns out.

“I was never terribly enthusiastic about that place to begin with,” said the Rev. Rafael Martinez, executive director of North County Chaplaincy, an Encinitas-based migrant group.

By catering only to documented workers “the hall isn’t doing the work it could do. To separate documented people from the undocumented is the work of the Border Patrol, not the job of a municipality,” he said.