Costa Mesa Mends Fences With Latinos : * There’s a Welcome Change at City Hall From the Mean-Spirited Actions of the Past

With a conscious effort to avoid fanfare, the city of Costa Mesa has begun the year on the right foot with a rebound from its disastrous forays into the treacherous area of immigration policy.

In an administrative shift billed as a cost-saving measure, the city is cutting ties to a job center it established in 1988 and transferring responsibility for its administration to the state.

The city says that relinquishing control to the state Employment Development Department will save the city $60,000, which is a good thing. But as much as anything, this quite obviously is a damage-control project, aimed at repairing relations with the city’s Latino community, which was justifiably outraged by the repeated attempts of former City Councilman Orville Amburgey to turn the city government into a kind of Border Patrol.

Mayor Mary Hornbuckle says the city is getting out of the employment office business, but it also clearly is cutting adrift some ill-fated policies and policy proposals.

At one point, the City Council had approved measures making it illegal to be in certain areas of the city with the intent to solicit work, a move that was struck down as unconstitutional in Orange County Superior Court.

Undaunted, Amburgey sought to ban pushcart vendors from the city on the grounds that they constituted a health risk, a clear attempt to discriminate against immigrants. That proposal was wisely rejected by the council.

Then there was the Amburgey-driven campaign to get charities in the city to screen for illegal immigrants before receiving federal funds. That outrage drew fire from Washington, and the personal attention of HUD Secretary Jack Kemp. The secretary, in a moving letter to Amburgey, pointed out the potential that such a policy might have for discrimination across the Southwest, and Costa Mesa thus found itself in the spotlight of national embarrassment.

Amburgey was voted out of office in November. But bad feeling was left behind in the Latino community, which by then had mobilized to protect itself from further intrusions. So the city is correct to begin righting past wrongs.

The recent transfer of responsibility for the dayworker center to the state starts the process. It means that dayworkers no longer have to prove to the city that they are in the country legally.

That shift to state regulations, where employers must do the checking, says a lot about a welcome change in attitudes in City Hall.