index.shtml TEXTttxt SS : A temporary answer for day-labor nomads
Day laborers who have been shooed away from several gathering spots in Gaithersburg are expected to have a government-sanctioned rendezvous point in an industrial park near Shady Grove Road in a matter of weeks.
County Executive Isiah ‘‘Ike” Leggett last Thursday recommended that a temporary, double-wide trailer be set up near the county’s liquor distribution warehouse as a place for dozens of workers to wait for employers.
Presuming the choice gets the green light after a public hearing next month before the county’s Planning Board, whose role is only advisory, the new center will bring to an end a tortured process to come up with a site in Gaithersburg.
At the same time, it is certain to re-ignite questions about the county government’s long-term role in supporting centers for the laborers, some of whom are in the country illegally, as well as renew the debate over national immigration and workforce policies.
Leggett’s statement announcing the half-acre site, near 16640 Crabbs Branch Way, called labor centers ‘‘a temporary expedient” that help solve ‘‘a practical problem.”
In the Gaithersburg case, the ‘‘practical problem” was loitering, littering and public urination in the well-kept neighborhoods around a church parking lot where the workers congregated, sometimes seven days a week.
After studying about 30 potential sites, Gaithersburg’s appointed and elected leaders threw up their hands and said none were suitable, plunking the issue back in the lap of the county government, which had already budgeted more than $114,000 in operating costs for a center in Gaithersburg.
Leggett’s compromise is already rankling neighbors near the County Services Park, land sandwiched between Rockville and Gaithersburg that includes bus depots and warehouses. The neighbors are being given minimal opportunity to protest and question the decision, which does not require County Council approval, and is essentially a done deal.
On most scorecards, the location makes sense. The parcel is about a half-mile from the nearest house, close to several bus routes and 50 yards south of Shady Grove Road, a major thoroughfare. The site is a mile-and-a-half from the church lot in Gaithersburg.
Although not an ideal location, it is a neutral one that represents a compromise, and a step forward. A permanent fix it is not. Two existing centers, in Wheaton and Silver Spring, have been effective to varying degrees. At some point, elected leaders will have to decide whether government should continue subsidies for the centers.
Leggett has also suggested that the county might try to use existing economic-development dollars, earmarked for programs to help small entrepreneurs, for loans to allow qualified day laborers to start their own businesses. An aide to Leggett stressed there would be no special treatment ‘‘other than a little more assistance in helping navigate the complexities of the paperwork.”
Where do you draw the line? It’s one thing to provide a basic gathering place and access to information about existing services. How much more should the county stretch?
Leggett is correct in wanting to shift the county out of the business of running labor centers: ‘‘No one wants to be a day laborer forever,” his statement said. Such moves will take patience and vision but, in the long haul, will prove beneficial.
The new county executive deserves credit for breaking a cantankerous, months-long impasse over a Gaithersburg center. At the same time, the work toward a policy to phase out centers is only beginning.