MAILBAG - July 14, 2006

‘Beverage’ patrol mars holiday

On the Fourth of July, I went to West Street beach, our internationally known gay and lesbian-friendly beach south of Aliso Creek and Camel’s Point.

A huge crowd of at least 1,000 people packed the sand and everything was fine until two young men in dark blue shorts and white shirts started going from towel to towel looking for alcohol.

They looked like beach folk, but turned out to be cops ? cops with no police identification, except ¾-inch letters on a logo reading “Laguna Beach Police” on the front of their shirts. I think they should have “police” clearly printed on the back of their shirts, in large letters.

People up and down the beach were talking about how they were smelling people’s drinking cups and asking people to open their ice chests.

One guy on a towel near mine asked out loud, “Don’t they have other things to do besides harass us?”

Another person said, “It looks like the city sent teenagers out to write tickets and collect money for the city.”

Why are the police so quick to harass people who have come to Laguna to have a peaceful, fun time and spend their money all over town ? only to run into cops?

My question to the police and City Council is: Did the beach patrol smell the drinking cups at the beach below Treasure Island Park and the Montage Hotel?

ROGER CARTER

Laguna Beach

Campaign is’embarrassing’

I have lived almost 79 years in Southern California. Mexican immigrants have been my friends and neighbors all of my life. They have worked in our fields, been bus boys in our restaurants and done any other dirty jobs that no one else wanted to do.

I am embarrassed that mean-spirited and greedy members of our country now attack them and have tried to make them unwelcome in our community.

If there is any way possible, the work location where they now meet with employers who need their help should be leased or purchased by the city to maintain the status quo. If this cannot be done, then the site should be relocated by the city government to a nearby space.

LYLE PICKETT

Laguna Beach

Anti-day labor center efforts hurt city

I have been very saddened with Eileen Garcia’s considerable efforts to shut down our day labor center and send the immigrants back home. It all started months ago with public protests fostered by her Minutemen cohorts.

Lacking any public outcry, it appears she has spent months researching other ways to bring down what is now a successful Laguna institution. Surprisingly, she found a loophole in the fact that the state, unbeknownst to both the city and state, owns the property. Caltrans is legally liable. Someone in the government dropped the ball.

Garcia leaped on this flaw and is forcing the city to move the center or go back to the days when laborers hung out at mini-marts and disturbed the peace and calm of nearby residents. It was, and still is, a highly effective solution to managing Laguna’s labor needs. It would make Adam Smith a happy capitalist.

Laborers need the work, and residents need someone to do their work ? a win-win situation. Without this labor resource, life in Laguna would diminish in quality.

The city is getting a real bargain with its meager annual support of $25,000. This is supplemented with the help of church and private nonprofit groups. The day labor center represents a kind of humanism that makes one proud to live in Laguna. And, Garcia wants to destroy this!

The question is “Why?”

Why would someone want to eliminate something that clearly contributes to the civility of the Laguna lifestyle? Her stated answer, and probably shared with her vigilante cohorts, is that the laborers and the center do “... not benefit Americans.”

These are the words of ignorant people. Any cursory glance of Laguna reveals the need for a large immigrant workforce, from the tourist industry to the building trades. Take these immigrants out of the picture and prices would skyrocket.

And it is obvious that the center has corrected a prior social problem at very little cost. In fact, now that the city may have to purchase land and structures for a new site, this move will drain the city’s coffers even more. There is little “benefit” in this. The only “benefit” in this fiasco is if Garcia and her friends stick to their border patrol. The status quo works in Laguna.

GENE COOPER

Laguna Beach

Labor Center must go

Should the day labor site be relocated to somewhere in the city?

Absolutely not! The question should be: what part of illegal do our city officials not understand? The majority of the day laborers are in this country illegally. The people that hire them are committing an illegal act. The fact is the city of Laguna Beach government knows this and ignores it. Laguna Beach is a “Sanctuary City.”

DOLORES KUSTIN

Laguna Beach

Don’t shut door on labor center

The day labor center should remain exactly where it is. It provides a tremendous benefit to our community and the ambitious and hardworking people that use the facility to find work.

If I may point out, day laborers are waking up before dawn, getting to this facility in an attempt to find work, for a daily wage below what many of us would accept. They do this to improve their own lives and the lives of their families.

They are not sitting around waiting for some government check. They are trying to improve their lives through hard work, ambition and faith that working hard in America allows for a better future.

Generations before, the Irish, Italians and many other groups prospered by working hard and being given an opportunity to do so. To shut down or even move the day labor center would be an affront to common decency and send a message to these working people that trying to work hard for a day’s pay doesn’t matter anymore because we are not going to let you do it.

I would argue that the little space provided to the day laborers is some of the best real estate in Laguna Beach. It provides an opportunity to good and decent people trying to make a better life. Let’s not shut this door on them.

We are Laguna Beach and we do right by good people trying to do right by themselves.

JAMES M. MOORE

Laguna Beach

Hire legal laborers or mow your own lawns

It’s a no-brainer. Want legal day laborers? Go to Labor Ready (www.laborready.com) They have a branch in Laguna Hills.

They have legal day laborers and have all their documentation in order. And hey Laguna, if that doesn’t work for you, you might start by mowing your own lawn and washing your own car or hiring someone at a decent wage who is either an American citizen or here legally.

For those who say we’ll fall apart economically without illegal immigrant labor, I say that’s exactly what the “open borders left” wants you to think.

California shells out more than $10 billion each year in free services that California taxpayers foot the bill for, and this far outweighs whatever minuscule taxes illegal immigrants pay, especially since most of them are paid under the table in cash.

Add all that to the fact that if you are hiring an illegal immigrant, you are in violation of federal statutes and subject to a $10,000 fine.

Do the right thing, Laguna Beach. Cut the cord and hire legal laborers.

JEFF MUNDT

Oceanside

Labor site must be closed

Lagunistas: The day labor site should be shut down. The City Council of Laguna is flouting immigration law [by] allowing this site.

Allowing and legitimizing this site is furthering the acceptance of illegal activity in our country. Illegal activity begets more illegal activity.

Your social justice garbage will only drag down our society and culture more and more. Wake up!

BILL CONSTABLE

Palos Verdes Estates

Labor center can be elsewhere

Should the Day Labor Center be relocated and, if so, where should it go?

Yes, to the south side of Laguna Canyon Road.

TIM MILLER

Laguna Beach

Center sanctions illegal ‘invasion’

It would be a big mistake to relocate the day labor site in Laguna. The city’s sanctioning an illegal activity is ludicrous.

Please seriously address the situation as other cities have done. (Costa Mesa, Vista and San Bernardino, for example.) Wake up!

This is an invasion that’s destroying our schools and healthcare facilities in addition to bringing us more disease, crime and traffic.

Cheap labor helps a few while the rest of us foot the bill with our tax dollars. Then we get to suffer all the negative consequences. Our city fathers here in Vista are finally beginning to address this serious situation. You should too.

SUELLEN AND JOHN SHEA

Vista

No more slave labor

Should the day labor site be relocated to somewhere in the city? The answer is ... definitely not! Stop the illegal invasion by cutting off the slave labor.

SAUL LISAUSKAS

Encinitas

Whoops. City is 79 years old

Mea culpa, mea culpa. I’ve made a mistake. I received some misinformation and recently indicated in a mailer I sent citywide that the city of Laguna Beach is celebrating its 77th birthday.

In fact, it was the Summer of 1927 that Laguna Beach incorporated, so she is older than I thought ? she is 79! I should have double-checked and I apologize for the inaccuracy.

ELIZABETH PEARSON-SCHNEIDER