DAY-WORKER CENTER EXPANDING GLENDALE CITY COUNCIL APPROVES $100,000 COST.Byline: Alex Dobuzinskis Staff Writer GLENDALE - The City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday to spend $100,000 to expand a center for day laborers day labor n. Labor hired and paid by the day. day laborer n. Noun 1. across the street from Home Depot The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Headquartered in Vinings, just outside Atlanta in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, Home Depot employs more than 355,000 people and operates 2,164 big-box , which will accommodate the increased number of people using the center since it opened in 1997. Workers gather at the city's mostly open-air center, run by Catholic Charities, to watch television, use the facility's portable restrooms and sit on benches and plastic seats as they wait for employers to offer them jobs. It serves 125 workers a day, up from 80 when it first opened, officials said. Burbank's decision last year to require Home Depot to include a day- laborer center in the parking lot of a store being built in that city drew the ire of immigration-control advocates, who said such centers cater to illegal immigrants illegal immigrant n. an alien (non-citizen) who has entered the United States without government permission or stayed beyond the termination date of a visa. (See: alien) . Glendale officials said their center is essential for laborers. ``These people have families, they've got to find a way (to work) and they're finding it the best way they can,'' said City Councilman Dave Weaver
The Weavers are small passerine birds related to the finches. These are seed-eating birds with rounded conical bills, most of which breed in sub-Saharan Africa, with fewer species in tropical . ``That center gives them a location.'' The $100,000 will allow for the expansion of the nearly 6,800 square- foot center by 2,160 square feet. It is located across the street from the Home Depot at 5040 San Fernando Road San Fernando Road is a major street in the city and county of Los Angeles. It starts off in Castaic as The Old Road, passing through Santa Clarita and the Newhall Pass, where upon its intersection with Sierra Highway near the junction of the Golden State (I-5) and the . Meanwhile, Glendale is awaiting a judgment from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the constitutionality of its ordinance A law, statute, or regulation enacted by a Municipal Corporation. An ordinance is a law passed by a municipal government. A municipality, such as a city, town, village, or borough, is a political subdivision of a state within which a municipal corporation has been requiring day laborers to stay on the sidewalk A Microsoft service that was launched in 1997 to provide online arts and entertainment guides on the Web for major cities worldwide. In 1999, Microsoft sold Sidewalk to Ticketmaster, which continued to provide guides, ticketing and other information to the MSN network. and not go into the street to solicit work. Glendale appealed to the 9th Circuit after a federal court struck down the ordinance, which had been challenged by a day-laborer group represented by the Mexican American Mexican American n. A U.S. citizen or resident of Mexican descent. Mex  i·can-A·mer Legal Defense and
Educational Fund.
Francisco Gonzalez, 30, of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. was standing with several other men across the street from the center Tuesday. Gonzalez would rather negotiate directly with employers instead of waiting at the center, which uses a lottery system to distribute work and has a Catholic Charities worker who talks to employers. ``He is the one who says what work you're going to do ... and how much they'll pay you by the hour,'' Gonzalez said in Spanish. But a 27-year-old day laborer at the center, who declined to be identified, said he would rather not solicit work himself. Unlike most of the other day laborers at the center and across the street, who tend to be Latino, the worker came from Japan five years ago. ``If I stand out there I have to ask myself, but here you just wait and it's more organized,'' he said. City Councilman Bob Yousefian voted against expanding the center, which he said was poorly located when it was placed across the street from Home Depot. ``It should have been in Home Depot, just like the one in Burbank is,'' he said. Alex Dobuzinskis, (818) 546-3304 alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Day laborers wait for work Tuesday at a center run by Catholic Charities across the street from a Home Depot in Glendale. Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer |
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