Council May Consider Fee Hike at Job Center

The City Council may consider at its meeting Monday increasing the fee that workers pay to use the Costa Mesa Job Center.

Established in 1988 as a place for day laborers to hook up with employers, the center costs the city about $128,000 a year to operate, Mayor Joe Erickson said.

Plumbers, painters and other workers, all of whom must prove that they are legal residents of the United States, pay $3 a year to use the center at 17th Street and Placentia Avenue. Increasing that fee, Erickson said, would help cover the costs of staffing.

The center, which started out with just one staff member, now has two full-time employees who register employers and workers, and help match them up. More than 2,500 people are now registered to use the center whenever they need work, city officials said.

To accommodate that clientele, the center had hoped to add a part-time employer this year. Additional staffing is also necessary, officials said, to mediate when occasional arguments break out among workers over adhering to the staff’s first-come, first-hired rule.

Officials have not said how much they would raise the workers’ enrollment fee.

“It has worked well,” Erickson said of the center, “but has also gotten expensive.”