County’s 1st Site for Hiring Day Laborers OKd : Moorpark: The Civic Center location is chosen after business owners object to the workers congregating near shopping areas.

The Moorpark City Council has established the first officially sanctioned hiring site for day laborers in Ventura County in an effort to resolve tension between the workers and local business owners.

The council voted 4 to 0 late Wednesday to allow the 30 to 50 day laborers who now congregate in front of a local convenience store called the Tipsy Fox to move to the grounds of the Civic Center complex until a permanent hiring site is found.

The workers are expected to move to the Civic Center grounds Tuesday. They have already begun passing out fliers announcing the new location to the construction contractors, landscape companies and other employers who hire the men for day jobs.

Before the council vote Wednesday, no one voiced opposition to the recommended location, in sharp contrast to a January council meeting where dozens of local business people and residents protested against a proposal to set up a hiring site in the downtown shopping district.

Councilman John Wozniak said he thinks that officials and business people began to look more favorably on establishing a hiring site after racial tensions in Los Angeles erupted in the recent riots.

The day laborers are primarily Latino, while most of the business people and residents who have objected to the city’s establishing a hiring site have been white.

“Because of recent events, how we are looking at things may be a little different now,” Wozniak said.

The city’s resolution of the hiring site issue “shows a unity here in Moorpark that I don’t think a whole lot of cities” have, Wozniak said.

Mayor Paul W. Lawrason Jr. said the task force that recommended the Civic Center for a hiring site was not influenced by the riots.

But he agreed that “this situation has created some tension in the community.”

And “those pent-up tensions can create a problem like they had in L.A.,” Lawrason said.

Moorpark city officials began searching for a day laborer hiring site last summer after the owner of the convenience store where the men now gather complained that their presence scared away potential customers.

In January, officials suggested establishing a hiring site on a vacant lot at the west end of High Street.

But the proposal sparked an uproar by local Chamber of Commerce officials, merchants and residents who said the men’s presence would harm efforts to attract more tourists and shoppers to the historic High Street district.

Chamber of Commerce officials argued that the city should not get involved in setting up a day laborer hiring site.

But the City Council responded to the uproar by forming a task force of about a dozen city officials, residents, business people and day laborers to find an alternative place for the workers to congregate.

The task force settled on the Civic Center location until it finds a building or other suitable place for a permanent hiring site.

One task force member, dentist Rick Borquez, 43, said he got involved because he “felt the tensions were increasing” between the workers and local merchants.

Through his involvement, Borquez said he came to a better understanding of the day laborers’ legal rights to congregate in public places.

“They did not have to move” from the Tipsy Fox parking lot, he said.

The Moorpark Civic Center will be the first hiring site in the county to be publicly sanctioned by local officials, said Anne Kamsvaagh, a Los Angeles immigrant rights advocate who tracks day laborer issues in Southern California.

Workers at the meeting Wednesday said they agreed to move to show that they recognize the concerns of the Tipsy Fox store owner and to demonstrate their willingness to work with city officials.

One of the Moorpark day laborers, Carlos Bucio, 32, told the council on Wednesday that he and the other men were not seeking special favors from the city.

“We have sought refuge in this country from our own country, which is in a crisis,” the immigrant from Michoacan, Mexico, said in Spanish. “There is no employment there.”

“We don’t want to receive anything free. All we want is the opportunity to work and be useful to this nation.”