Update: The Video of this meeting has been put up on the web.

It was another long meeting, and almost impossible to summarize. City hall was packed, with many people having to sit in the gallery [*]. The public testimony went for about two hours, with each person getting at most three minutes. The speakers ran the gamut, from law-and-order ideologues to bleeding hearts; from pathetic, sobbing jornaleros to angry, fist-pounding authoritarians. There were moderates seeking practical solutions, clergy concerned that the jornaleros be treated with the consideration that any human is due, and citizens just wanting to thank the Mayor, Council and City staff for working so hard to try to solve a problem that other communities just ignore.

Generally, the former task force members who spoke gave their support to the proposed site. Most of the people who had been involved in the process over the past year were supportive, although insistent that the City pass an antisolicitation ordinance. Several of the regular critics — Demos Chrissos, Susan Payne and Stephen Schreiman in particular — were there and gave impassioned statements against any sort of center. There were a number of people who have, as far as I know, never been to a Mayor and Council meeting before and likely were there only because Chris Core told them to go. Several members of the clergy stood to offer their support for and participation in a proposed local coalition of faith organizations that might run the center. There was a large contingent of day laborers, supported by several advocates including Kim Propeack of CASA de Maryland.

There were accusations of racism and insistence that racism had nothing to do with it; predictions that the city would be overrun by half the population of Mexico City, stories of immigrants bringing and spreading disease and crime, stories of helpless Latinos fleeing rape, abuse and poverty, and owners of businesses at the shopping center predicting the loss of their livelihoods as their customers abandon them because of their fear of the the day laborers.

In the end, the Mayor and Council rejected the extremes and voted (3-1, Marraffa against and Schlichting not attending because of a conflict) for the resolution endorsing the proposed site, with an amendment intended to further nudge the County to hire a local Gaithersburg group to run the center, rather than their Division of Hispanic Outreach, otherwise known as CASA de Maryland. A printed, draft anti-soliciation ordinance was available with the other background materials, although this document is not yet up on the City’s website, and was not introduced for consideration by the Council. Still, the Mayor and the Council did reiterate support for the adoption of such an ordinance, and stated that the County had no say in whether the City were to have such a law. I have a copy of the draft ordinance and if the City doesn’t post it soon I’ll try to summarize it for you.

It’s way too late now, I need to just publish this post and go to bed. I’m sure that there’ll be lots of news coverage tomorrow — there were television cameras and print photographers, and reporters at least from the Washington Times, the Gazette and the Town Courier. So as I see stories tomorrow I’ll try to link to them.

Goodnight.

* If you’ve never been there, the main chamber has maybe five or six rows of leather chairs, providing seating for maybe 75-100 people. There’s another room directly above the chamber called the Gallery — because they do frequently exhibit art up there — where they set up several rows of more spartan folding chairs and a big TV set playing the live cable TV feed. If you get there late and the chamber is full, you have to go up to the gallery and watch on TV. But if you want to speak, there’s a stairway you can come down to get in line for a turn at the podium. Usually, by halfway through a meeting, the crowd in the main chamber starts to thin out and people gradually move down from the gallery to the good seats.