Today, the Washington Post printed an editorial headlined “Score One for NIMBYs“:
CHALK UP a victory for the xenophobes and the not-in-my-back-yard crowd in the city of Gaithersburg, and a setback for tolerance and decency.
What an opening sentence. They have no — and tellingly do not provide any — basis for calling this the work of xenophobes, and yet there it is, the seventh word in the editorial. Of course the remainder of the editorial makes no mention of any of the myriad legitimate reasons why the citizens of Gaithersburg might be concerned about a day laborer center, much less attempt to refute them. Since disclosing the truth would make it difficult to argue their position, they make up a fiction and criticize that. I suppose that the Post would counter that they’ve seen a couple of xenophobes in Gaithersburg, and this is of course a victory for them. Nowhere in the remainder of the editorial do they connect xenophobes to the decision reached by the City — to do so would be highly insulting to a city government that has bent over backward to be fair to people of all nationalities. They only suggest, in this first sentence, that this is something a xenophobe would appreciate. Well, a communist might appreciate the Post’s editorial, but I honestly don’t see how that’s relevant, either.
As far as the NIMBY thing is concerned, one could argue that the Post is the biggest NIMBY of all here, as they insist that the day laborer center should be in Olde Towne Gaithersburg rather than in their neighborhoods. Everyone is a NIMBY when it comes to disruptions to the peace of their home. This is a silly argument, but it appears to be the only one they can make when the facts are against them.
Regarding tolerance and decency, they simply don’t know what they are talking about. Olde Towne is one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Gaithersburg. By and large, this diverse collection of residents gets along — and tolerates each other — remarkably well. And by and large, most of the day laborers are decent people just trying to find some work. However there are serious downsides to a day laborer center — large numbers of construction and landscaping vehicles during the morning hours, for example — that make them entirely inappropriate for a residential neighborhood, and these have nothing to do with the color of anyone’s skin or the language that they speak.
There are of course problems resulting from the behavior of some of the laborers and others who are drawn to a place where it is OK to hang around with nothing to do. Some of these behaviors, such as drinking and peeing in public, or harassment of women, are sometimes claimed to be rooted in Hispanic culture, and people who complain about these things are often painted as xenophobes. But again this is silly — one does not typically see these behaviors from most Hispanics. These are unacceptable behaviors from anyone of any culture and it is perfectly legitimate to object to anything that would bring more of it to one’s neighborhood. If the post wishes to discuss “decency”, perhaps they could first discuss the decency of those who engage in these disruptive activities.
After a fruitless yearlong search for a site to place a day-laborer center, city officials have declared defeat, turned tail and thrown themselves — and dozens of immigrant day laborers — on the mercy of Montgomery County.
My goodness. Where on Earth do they get this “thrown themselves on the mercy of Montgomery County” business? The City has simply said that they can’t find another place within the City that a landlord is willing to lease for this purpose. Remember that the City did find a place for a center — the Festival shopping center — but the County, who had agreed ahead of time to handle the lease negotiations, failed to follow through with a lease. Owing to the irregular perimeter of the City, there are plenty of places that are not in the City but which are just as close to Olde Towne as was Festival; for jurisdictional reasons, the City has been precluded from investigating these locations. What, exactly, is magical about the City boundary when it comes to day laborers?
Now, to add insult to injury, the officials are weighing a prohibition on workers soliciting jobs at curbside, a measure that would impede the city’s own residents from seeking gainful employment.
One imagines that the Post’s editorial writers have never attempted to drive into a parking lot that has been taken over by day laborers. One imagines that the Post editorial writers never even go to the parts of town where this sort of thing happens.
It’s a sad story and a shameful one. Just over a year ago, Gaithersburg was well on its way to doing what other immigrant-heavy localities in this area and elsewhere have done — make some accommodation for a group of local workers whose muscle and services are clearly in demand. But the site chosen for the employment center, a disused water treatment facility across the street from a parking lot where the workers had gathered each morning for months, did not pass muster with some neighbors — or with the activists who have made harassment of day laborers their stock in trade. And neither, to shorten a sorry saga, did the dozens of other sites considered by the city.
The Post is beating a dead horse here. The 17 North Frederick site that they are referring to was a bad choice. There were many things wrong with it — not just for the neighborhood but for the laborers as well. The site on East Diamond had only three parking spaces in a congested and busy location; it wasn’t at all clear how the employers would be able to use the site to hire workers. There were other sites, such as the City Hall parking lot and the King of Nations church, which the advocates themselves had rejected, for reasons that are still not disclosed. Most other locations were rejected not by the City or the advocates, but by the owners of the properties themselves. Does the Post suggest here that a property must be taken from an owner in order to make this happen?
At that point, city officials could have shown some backbone. After all, Gaithersburg’s day laborers live, shop, pay rent and often do jobs in the city, and they have been seeking work at impromptu and shifting locations in the city for years. And the county was offering to foot the bill for the employment center. But instead of dealing with a problem, city officials folded. Rather than choosing a site, minimizing the impact on the surrounding area and providing whatever staff support, policing and political leadership would make it work, the city slunk away.
This is just so wrong. Again, where is this site they should have chosen? Does the Post really believe that the City should take some sort of jack-booted police action to take over a property so that the laborers have somewhere to stand?
“After an exhaustive search,” city manager David B. Humpton wrote, “it does not appear possible” to place an employment center within the city’s 10 square miles that would not offend someone. He urged the county, which has maintained smooth-running day-labor centers in Silver Spring and Wheaton for some time, to deal with the problem.
“Smooth-running” is a bit of an exaggeration. There may not be much strife at these centers, but there isn’t much efficacy, either. Day laborers still congregate at ad hoc hiring sites near them, and less than a quarter of the laborers who go to the center — on many days less than ten percent — ever get hired. Cost per placement is steadily rising. The County continues to dump money into these centers, and into the activist organization that runs them, CASA de Maryand. But the laborers, and their communities, get relatively little benefit for all that effort. It likely would be more cost-effective to just give the money directly to the laborers.
The trouble is, governing is about making choices, and not every choice will be universally favored. In this instance, Gaithersburg’s leaders — Mayor Sidney A. Katz and the five members of the City Council — have simply shirked their responsibility to govern.
No, they have listened to the citizens of Gaithersburg and have done what they were elected to do. The wrong choice would have been to go against their electorate and continued to waste their time and money looking for a location that was never going to be found.
There is something shameful here, and that thing is the Post’s editorial.