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While the story that the fairgrounds’ board is considering the sale of their Gaithersburg property is not new, Saturday’s Washington Post has a story by Lori Aratani which purports to give a bit more information on the issue. Unfortunately, as typical for the Post, the article just leaves you wondering what is really going on.

Proceeds from the potential sale of the 62-acre site could go into an endowment that would support the continuation of the fair, which drew a record 220,000 visitors last summer.

Admission to the fair last year was $7 for an adult, $3 for kids from 2 to 7, free under 2. However there are all manner of discounts and promotions available. For example, I think that 4H exhibitors and their families get in free, and there’s children’s and seniors’ days with free admission for some people. So say that on average, somewhere around half, or 110,000, of the visitors paid $7 to get in; that would be $770,000 in revenue just from admission. At the same time, there are additional charges for events such as the demolition derby and the tractor pull; these events can draw thousands of people at $7 to $12 per person. Also, parking is $5 per car, and the various vendors have to pay for their space. It is hard to believe that — assuming the 220,000 attendance figure is correct — annual fair revenues don’t at least begin to approach $1 million.

Martin Svrcek, executive director of the Montgomery County Agricultural Center, said the past two years were the best in fair history. With last year’s record crowd, the fair made about $50,000 profit. But that’s not enough to offset the cost of air conditioning or heating buildings and powering rides. Compounding the problem is that many of the original buildings have never been upgraded, Svrcek said.

The cost of running the fair has increased from $4,600 a day in 2002 to $5,300 a day last year, he said.

So now things seem to be screwy. First off, the $50,000 “profit” isn’t a profit if it doesn’t cover operating expenses. Second, the mention of powering rides raises the question of how the contract with the carnival vendor works. While admission to the carnival area is of course included in the fair admission, there is a separate charge for the rides, food, and games within the carnival. Doesn’t the carnival vendor have to give the fair a portion of their revenues? Is the fair saying that this share of revenues isn’t enough to provide power for the rides?

The figure cited as the “cost of running the fair” also makes no sense — the fair runs for nine days, and $5,300 per day thus comes out to $47,700. Given close to a million dollars in revenues, this seems a drop in the bucket, and in fact a tiny amount given the level of effort that must be entailed for running an operation serving tens of thousands of people per day. Perhaps what Mr Svrcek was saying was that the annual cost of running the fairgrounds is $5,300 per day; this would add up to close to $2 million annually, and sort of make sense. But then, they have all manner of other activities throughout the year at the fairgrounds, which also bring in revenues. As I said, the Post’s story just leaves you wondering what is really going on.

Update: Fortunately, the Fairgrounds (”Montgomery County Agricultural Center, Inc.”) is a 501(c)(3) Public Charity, and thus their income taxes (Form 990) are public. The latest filing available on Guidestar is for tax year 2006. In that year they reported total revenues of $2,417,713 and total expenses of $1,913,512. Net assets (including land and buildings) and fund balances at the end of the year were $3,323,140. Clearly this is not directly connected to the actual market value of their assets, as, according to property tax records, the assessed value of their land (two lots, tax accounts 09-00820328 and 09-00840840) alone is about $14.9 million.

I note that $1,913,512 divided by 365 is $5,242.50, which would then be the expenses per day to run the fairgrounds, thus matching my guess as to what the Post might have been trying to say. This figure includes the costs to run all the activities through the year, including the fair. I also note that their “profit”, or excess of revenues over expenses for the year 2006 amounted to about a half a million dollars.

Revenues broke down this way:

Fair revenue: $1,015,549 plus $5,744 “unrelated”.
Use of facilities: $977,457
Dinners and Meetings: $201,048
Interest on savings & temporary cash investments: $46,800
Direct public support: $51,619
Government contributions: $61,500
Other income: $57,996

Expenses broke down this way:

Program activities: $934,461
Management and general: $176,992
Fundraising: $7,375
Compensation of officers: $81,094
Salaries and wages: $256,719
Employee benefits & payroll taxes: $61,777
Equipment rental & maintenance: $153,724
Depreciation, depletion, etc.: $216,335
Other: $25,035

Anyway I think that this may shed a bit of light on the Fairgrounds’ financial situation, where the Post’s approach of throwing out a few random, poorly identified numbers just creates confusion.

In Sunday’s Washington Post, Ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote a bit about the Post’s approach to the topic of illegal immigration, including their hostility to the terms “illegal immigrant” and “illegal alien”, as well as their fondness for labeling opponents of illegal immigration as “anti-immigrant”.

Having written some about this subject in the past, I thought I’d chime in on what she had to say.

Ms. Howell writes:

A few “anti-immigrant” references have popped up in recent stories — and shouldn’t have. The Post also went astray in a March 18, 2007, story about a federal raid on a New England plant; the story reported on what happened to illegal immigrants swept up in the raid but never quoted immigration officials. I also worry that advocacy groups on both sides of the issue are quoted uncritically.

This is at least encouraging anyway. But note that in the following text:

John Mac Michael of Alexandria wrote: “Your recent article on growing opposition to illegal aliens (immigrants?) in Maryland once again used the familiar ploy of labeling those citizens who oppose illegal aliens as being ‘anti-immigrant.’ This is baloney. There is a clear difference between the two classes, and I certainly welcome those who are here legally.”

The headline should have been more precise. The story also drew fire from pro-immigration activists who said it didn’t make clear that most people appearing at a Mount Rainier City Council meeting favored declaring the city a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants. A correction was published.

which appears at first to be somewhat deferential, the use of the term “pro-immigration activists” to identify those who assert that the coverage of Mount Rainier story didn’t fully disclose the level of support for illegal immigrants. I wonder: did those who complained to the Post about this self-identify as “pro-immigration”, or did Ms. Howell use her own judgment in selecting that label? Because from what she describes here, the activists were advocating for greater rights for the illegal aliens, not for greater immigration per se. Were these not really “pro-illegal-immigrant activists” (or perhaps “illegal immigrant advocates”)? Is not “pro-immigration” just the flip side of “anti-immigrant”? Because a whole lot of people who are in favor of legal immigration are strongly opposed to illegal immigration. In this context, how is it that “pro-immigration” precisely defines the positions of the activists cited by Ms. Howell?

Lastly, I feel compelled to point out this from the final paragraph:

The Post does not use “alien” in news stories and prefers “illegal immigrant.” Even if “alien” is legal terminology, to me, it sounds like someone from outer space.

“Alien” may not sound right to her, but this quote sounds to me as if it had been taken from a satirical “fake-news” article. Really, this is the logic the Post is using?

In any event, I take this article as a good sign that the Post is at least starting to think about the way they report this story. I am concerned, however, that Ms. Howell’s position is a bit on the squishy side. It will bear watching whether anything will change in the Post’s coverage of the illegal immigration story.

How something like this ever gets into a major newspaper, I’ll never understand. How many errors do you find in this? I get:

• The Gaithersburg City Council has five seats, not four. In fact, I have never heard of such a body having an even number of seats. (The US Senate has an even number of seats, but the Vice President is available to break ties).
• While it is true that Henry F. Marraffa is not running for reelection, this is because his term isn’t up.
• Stanley Alster, a member of the City Council for over twenty years who is retiring this year, is not mentioned.

Michael Tunison writes in the Washington Post, Plenty of Trash Talk in Rockville’s Mayoral Race:

In Gaithersburg, the terms of three of the four council members expire this year. Geri Edens, Henry F. Marraffa Jr. and John B. Schlichting are not running for reelection. Seven candidates are vying for the openings; the three with the most votes will win:

• Ahmed Ali, 35, president and chief executive of TISTA Science and Technology Corporation.
• Shawn Ali, 33, member of the Gaithersburg IT and Innovations Committee.
• Jud Ashman, 36, president of the Elegant Envelope and a member of the mayor’s ad hoc committee on electoral participation.
• Cathy C. Drzyzgula, 51, member of the Gaithersburg Historic Preservation Committee.
• Wilson Lee Faris, 61, sales specialist at Lowes and a member of the Gaithersburg Landlord Tenant Commission.
• Carlos Solis, 48, member of the Gaithersburg Chief of Police Advisory Council.
• Ryan Spiegel, 29, lawyer and a member of the Gaithersburg Education Committee.

The remaining council member, Michael A. Sesma, and the mayor, Sidney A. Katz, have two years remaining on their terms.

Of course it was easily predicted. The Washington Post could not but find some way to trash Gaithersburg in the wake of Ike Leggett’s day laborer center decision. And just as predictably, they got it wrong.

In an editorial they oddly title A Suitable Spot, they say:

ASK COUNTY Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett’s colleagues and friends — he has no enemies to speak of — and they will tell you that Montgomery’s new leader is a master at making consensus materialize. Take, for example, the compromise-out-of-a-hat trick he revealed Thursday, when he announced that he had found a location for a controversial day-laborer center just outside Gaithersburg.

Yes, this is what we have all been waiting for — someone in the County government with some common sense.

All but extreme anti-immigrant activists should be satisfied with Mr. Leggett’s plan, and it looks as though the county will, at long last, build the center.

There they go again. While I myself am in fact satisfied [1] with the parts of Mr. Leggett’s plan which have so far been disclosed, it is entirely obvious to me that one does not have to be anti-immigrant to be angry with this development. One could be a strong advocate of immigrants and still have serious problems with what the County is doing. Further:

• This day laborer center will do very little to help those who are immigrants, in the legal sense of the word “immigrant”. The vast majority of day laborers are here illegally. Although they are sometimes called “illegal immigrants”, this phrase probably should be considered an oxymoron. [2]. Honestly, I am quite sick to death of the routine application of the “anti-immigrant” label to opponents of illegal “immigration”. Immigration and illegal immigration are two completely separate issues, and the Post cannot but know this.
• While I am not in universal agreement with Brad Botwin on some of these issues, I respect the work that he has done to move the Shady Grove Sector Plan forward, and I believe he has every right to be concerned about what this might mean for the future of plans on which the ink is just now getting dry.
• I think that County residents have every right to be appalled at the County’s ability to forge ahead with something like this with no public process whatsoever. The fact that Mr. Leggett has offered to have a pro forma “public process” only adds to the insult. Does anyone reasonably expect that his promised hearing on February 8 will have any impact on the County’s plans for a center? Why is he inviting people to waste their time?
• The County will almost certainly hire CASA de Maryland to run the center, and the continued funding of this activist organization is reason enough to be concerned.

The county executive’s accomplishment stands in sharp relief to the spineless dithering of Gaithersburg officials, who should not have had to rely on Mr. Leggett (D) to solve what was supposed to be their problem.

No, they have this completely wrong. Mr. Leggett’s “accomplishment” stands in sharp relief to his predecessor’s entirely unhinged insistence that the center be placed on the Gaithersburg side of an imaginary line that is completely invisible to any day laborer in the County. Moreover, the Post seems here to have gotten it into its malfunctioning mind that all the day laborers live inside the Gaithersburg city limits. While many do, they also come from surrounding areas in the County, including Montgomery Village and Germantown, and it is expected that the establishment of an official center will draw laborers from a far wider area — laborers are known to come from as far away as the Eastern Shore to take advantage of Montgomery County laborer centers. There never was any compelling reason why it had to be inside Gaithersburg.

Day-laborer centers provide shelter, bathrooms and other basic needs to local workers looking for gainful employment. Though many of the workers are illegal immigrants, their services are clearly in demand — and essential to the area’s economy.

The Post’s editorial board still isn’t reading their own paper; this “demand” has been slowing considerably. And even if they were right about this — do I read correctly that the Post is insisting that lawbreaking is essential to the area’s economy? Have they even begun to think through what they are saying?

But that did not prevent a rash of NIMBY outrage and anti-immigrant rhetoric when Gaithersburg proposed to base an employment center on a parcel that housed a disused water treatment plant.

This is clearly the world as seen from a bubble. Yes, there was a NIMBY flavor to what happened, but really, it was more of a NIMFY thing — Not In My Front Yard. When the Post Editors invite illegal migrants to pee and leave trash in the Editors’ own front yards perhaps I might start to feel bad about this, but then again probably not. Also note:

• It was not a “disused water treatment plant”. It had been a retail store that sold filtered water and water filtration equipment and supplies. It was a tiny, little, old building that was in unsafe condition, could not have gotten an occupancy permit for public assembly without a huge amount of work, and was sitting — and continues to sit — on land not zoned for this use.
• The City did participate along with the County in identifying the location, but it was not entirely the City’s doing and the City did later come to understand that it was a mistake, for practical and legal reasons that went far beyond the local opposition. The County never did seem to understand the whole “legal process” thing, and continues to this day to allow the laborers to loiter in the parking lot of that building.

The city went on to survey dozens of other sites, all of which someone in the community found unsuitable,

The Post would not, of course, explain that in all but a small number of cases, it was the property owners who found the use unsuitable. The Post still has not explained how City might have gotten past this little property-rights stumbling block. Some other sites, e.g. the City Hall parking lot and the King of Nations church, were rejected by the worker advocates themselves, for reasons still not disclosed. Then there is the little omission of the final site in the City (Festival at Muddy Branch), that the City did find for the County to lease, even obtaining a letter of intent from the property owner. The County, however, was not able to follow through with a lease. Why does the Post keep forgetting this part?

until the mayor and the City Council gave up and tossed the question to departing County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D). Mr. Duncan tried but failed to find a location.

This is fascinating news. Mr. Duncan tried to find a location? When did he do this, and where did he look? Why did his candidate sites not work out? I’ve never seen this reported anywhere else. I’m only aware of the County trying to bully the City into doing the County’s bidding.

Mr. Leggett’s solution is to place the employment center on county property south of Gaithersburg. It’s far enough away from the city’s neighborhoods to placate residents

It is far enough away from all neighborhoods. This is the best thing about this site, is that there are no neighborhoods or sensitive businesses to be impacted here. The only neighbors are County facilities. It is where they should have been looking to put it all along. It is the sort of place that the Day Laborer Task Force said would be most appropriate. It is also a place that had — in specific — been recommended to the County in the past, but Mr. Duncan was too pigheaded to consider it.

but accessible enough for local day laborers to reach it — five Metrobus lines serve the area. County funds are already available to build and run the facility. It’s a nice fix to a fight that has pitted immigrant-rights activists against neighbors and anti-immigrant groups for more than a year.

And this is the part I just don’t get, and why I said the editorial was “oddly” titled A Suitable Spot. The bulk of this editorial consisted of criticism of Gaithersburg and its public and thoughtful process. But even the Post realizes that this is a good spot — possibly the best available spot — for the center; they even make this point in the headline. And if they weren’t so damned spiteful, I expect that even they would see that this is the solution that Mr. Duncan’s administration had kept from consideration. But criticism of Mr. Duncan, I guess, is not something in which the Post is inclined to engage.

[1] As I’ve explained previously, my reason for supporting a center is that the existence of a center strengthens an anti-solicitation ordinance’s chances in court, and I believe that such an ordinance is our best chance, short of wholesale political change, at dealing with the unsupervised assembly of day laborers at unauthorized locations throughout the City. In fact, there appears to be no mood on the Gaithersburg City Council for passing an anti-solicitation ordinance that is not contingent on the existence of a day laborer center.

[2] Personally I’m growing fond of the phrase “unauthorized migrant”, which is often considered more politically correct because of the lack of the word “illegal”. I, on the other hand, like the term because it more clearly separates the issue from that of legal immigration. “Illegal migrant” may be even better — perhaps I’ll be use that in the future.

In an editorial in today’s Washington Post regarding the challenges facing Ike Leggett, the Post whines,

He also faces an immediate challenge on the issue of decent treatment for immigrant workers from the city of Gaithersburg, which has refused to build a day-laborer center for dozens of its own residents whose work is clearly in demand locally. All eyes will be on Mr. Leggett to resolve what has become a venomous dispute between the county, which insists that Gaithersburg accommodate the workers, and the city, which remains recalcitrant. By acting firmly and soon to establish a center — preferably within Gaithersburg’s city limits — Mr. Leggett can send an early signal that he is in charge.

I guess that to the extent that the Post read my previous response — they certainly had the opportunity to, as it is (or was, at this writing) even linked off their own website — they didn’t listen. So, let’s try it again:

• Gaithersburg was never — ever — going to set up a day laborer center. By the agreement with the County, Gaithersburg’s only responsibility was to find a location for one and to help with getting the location fixed up; the County was supposed to lease the center and hire the contractor to staff it. The City made a mistake with the first location by running through the process too fast, without any public input. Once people understood what was being done, it became clear what was wrong with the proposed site, and the City agreed to run through the process one more time, this time with public involvement. The City, at least, knows how to admit when they make a mistake, and make a good effort to correct it.
• Although the process was long and a bit messy, the City never — ever — refused to allow a Center to operate within the City limits. City staff worked long and hard to find a place, but were rebuffed at every turn — most often by the property owners, who didn’t want this activity on their properties. But they were sometimes also rebuffed by the day laborer advocates, who didn’t like some of the sites. In the case of another proposed site, neighbors effectively demonstrated why it would be a bad location.
• After that long, arduous effort, the City did in fact find a location for a center, securing a letter of intent to lease from the property’s owner. The City Council voted in favor of allowing that site to be used for a Center. However, the County — yes, the County — was unable to follow through with a lease for this location and thus the deal fell through.
• Thereafter, the City was faced with more months of looking for a place that the County might be able to lease — a place that, in all probability, was never going to be found. During the months-long search, the requirement was very well publicized, and it occurs to me that if there was any property owner anywhere in the City who was interested in leasing for this purpose, they would have heard about the opportunity by now and come forward to offer such a lease. But there was nothing. Nobody really wanted to lease for this purpose.
• The perimeter of Gaithersburg is very irregular, and there are pockets of County all around the edges of the City, and even little County enclaves within the main boundary of the City. With the County’s bizarre insistence that the center be located within the City limits, all these possible locations were excluded from consideration.

I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that no day laborer is likely to care whether the land they stand on to solicit is governed by the City or by the County. This just isn’t going to be part of their thinking; I would think they would mostly care if (a) the employers come, and (b) they don’t have to travel too far to get there. So why should the County care, and why — this I really just can’t understand at all — why on Earth should the Post care? Walnut Hill Shopping Center, for example, is a half mile closer to the North Summit apartments where it is claimed that many day laborers live, than is the Festival shopping center where the County tried, but failed, to lease a storefront. Walnut Hill even has, last I looked, a couple of empty bays right next to an MVA express — what could be more convenient? And yet, the County will not agree to ask the owner of Walnut Hill Shopping Center if they would lease for this purpose, simply because it is not in the City limits.

The only explanation I can come up with for this behavior is that the County is playing some sort of “who’s your daddy?” game with the City, and the laborers are getting caught in the crossfire. This is bad politics and bad policy, and I certainly hope that Mr. Leggett and Mr. Firestine are smart enough to realize this.

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.

Today in the Post, Nancy Trejos writes,

For Edgardo Garcia, an immigrant from El Salvador, an affordable housing proposal under consideration by Gaithersburg officials could give him the opportunity to buy a home after six years of renting an apartment.

For Bob Drzyzgula, a homeowner and 17-year city resident, the proposal could mean more “slums” for a downtown that many say sorely needs upscale businesses and homes.

These opposing views underscore the culture clash dividing Gaithersburg, a city of about 60,000 residents whose suburban comforts have given way to the urban challenges of an economically and racially diverse community.

First of all, I don’t understand why these are “opposing views”. By my recollection of the affordable housing hearing she references in the article, very few speakers — even among the developers — opposed having an affordable housing policy at all. The entire debate, I thought, surrounded the question of whether redevelopment in Olde Towne had to include affordable units, given that Olde Towne is now almost exclusively “affordable”. Even if Olde Towne were exempt, the proposal called for the developers to make a contribution to an affordable housing fund.

As the City Council considers a proposal to require developers to set aside affordable housing for moderate-income and middle-class families, it is also struggling to find a location for an employment center for day laborers, many of them immigrants.

“It’s not this little city anymore,” said Grace Rivera-Oven, who has a local cable show and has been a vocal supporter of the day-laborer center. “I think [there’s] a socioeconomic division, and you add . . . different people from different places, and I guess it’s kind of a little bit of a ‘not in my back yard’ kind of thing. People are threatened by it.”

“What they’re looking at is doing something that will potentially act as a disincentive in an area that is having a great deal of difficulty attracting development at all,” said Drzyzgula, who is critical of the day-laborer center but does not think that the center is related to the affordable housing debate.

Unless I’m in error, these are the only two references to the day laborer center in the entire article. Ms. Trejos seems to be struggling here to connect the labor center with the affordable housing issue, but failing miserably. Why are these references even in the article?

I think, again from my recollection of the meeting, that the people on the the two “sides” of this debate are much closer together than what is represented here. Virtually everyone is supportive of affordable housing. The only question is how geographically concentrated this housing should be, and how to encourage reinvestement in older properties so that they don’t decay into slums. Ms. Trejos seems to miss this point entirely. What is the Post’s goal here?

Update/correction: Rereading what I wrote here I thought I should add that it is true that there was a bit more to the debate — the affordable housing advocates thought that the proportion of MPDUs called for should be higher than what was proposed. The sum of the MPDU and Workforce requirements in the City proposal is the same as the MPDU requirement for the County — 15% — but the County, if I recall correctly, does not presently have a Workforce housing requirement. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but the advocates would prefer that the MPDU requirement be set at 15% or higher just like the County, and any Workforce requirements be put on top of that. However, I didn’t sense much traction for that suggestion on the Council — I think that the Council was primarilly concerned with the Olde Towne/No Olde Towne question.

The video of that meeting is available on the City’s website.

Update: Note this comment on BeyondDC:

Gaithersburg has been a slum as long as I have been alive. HOC, under the directive of down-county politicians has long worked to make the upcounty an affordable housing mecca despite the lack of transit and healthcare infrastructure so that the County could go about city building in Bethesda and Silver Spring…

Update 2: There was a letter in the 11/05/06 Washington Post responding to this article:

Why did this article seem to try so hard to connect the day-laborer issue with the issue of affordable housing? The day laborers in the Olde Towne area of Gaithersburg number — as evidenced by the size of the crowd at the street corner — only in the dozens, while the affordable housing units in that area number in the hundreds. This is a diverse community, ethnically and socioeconomically. We are trying hard to work together to find solutions that work for everyone.

In an editorial in today’s Post, we learn:

Even after examining some 30 sites over the past nine months, the city has come up empty-handed: Some prospective neighbors, it seems, always object.

No, it isn’t a problem with the neighbors in most cases. It is a problem with the property owners. It has been extraordinarily difficult to find a landlord willing to rent for this purpose. In the very few cases where the landlord has been willing (or possibly unwitting), the unsuitability of the site for virtually any use and consequent long-term inability to find a tenant may well have been calculated into the landlord’s decision. Does the Post think that the City should accept any site offered, no matter how inappropriate? Or perhaps the Post thinks that the City should exercise eminent domain to solve this problem, forcing some property owner to relinquish his rights for the day laborers?

Gaithersburg’s dilemma is no different from that of other growing suburban localities in this area and elsewhere, where day laborers — most of them Hispanic and many of them illegal immigrants — are in demand. Like it or not, they are an integral part of the local economy, and their services are welcomed as house painters, construction workers, landscapers and odd-jobbers.

If they are an integral part of the local economy, why are so many of them standing around doing nothing? Does the Post suggest that the City has an obligation to warehouse surplus laborers? When most businessmen find insufficient demand for their product at a location, they typically abandon that location. Does the Post believe that day laborers should be immune from this risk?

Like other jurisdictions, Gaithersburg has been saddled with a problem that is the product of the federal government’s failed immigration policies. But also like other jurisdictions, Gaithersburg must make accommodations for a group of workers from whom the city and its residents clearly benefit.

“Must” is strong language. One would think from this editorial that there was some law that compelled all local jurisdictions to set up employment centers for day laborers. In fact, there is no such law, and the Post must know this. Moreover, there are those who argue that such centers, to the extent that they serve illegal immigrants, are themselves illegal. I myself wish to look past this question but for the Post to say that Gaithersburg must make these accommodations seems a bit much. In fact, if the Post were to look at the situation a bit more carefully, I believe that they would find that very few local jurisdictions have set up day labor centers. This is not because there aren’t day laborers in other jurisdictions, but rather because few of those jurisdictions were willing to try to do something about them — in most cases the problems — and yes there are problems — are simply allowed to fester.

In Silver Spring and Wheaton, Montgomery County has been operating day-labor centers for some time, without incident.

And without much benefit, either. I encourage the Post to visit those day-labor centers, and see first hand all the laborers who are not getting hired, and then to drive around in the area of those day labor centers and see first hand all the informal laborer pickup sites. Why do so many laborers avoid the day labor centers? Please read the report of Gaithersburg’s Day Labor Task Force:

Despite the desire to provide all these educational and social service opportunities, the main thing the workers did at all of the centers was to wait for work. In Silver Spring the workers waited in an outbuilding sitting on chairs, talking, and perhaps eating. In Herndon they waited under a cloth canopy, unless they were called in for English classes. In Wheaton the men watched a flat panel TV, browsed the internet on computers and talked. (The internet access was clearly unrestricted.) The Wheaton ESOL classes were held in the evening because the workers did not want classes to take them away from the opportunity of getting a job. It seemed that the Herndon center did more to encourage the workers to learn English, and their greater involvement in self-management presented opportunities for self improvement and the ability to make a difference in their own lives. The permit condition which prevented the Herndon center from providing social services at the center did not keep the workers from receiving services. It was also true that if services were primarily available at employment centers, workers who obtained long term employment would no longer have access to these services. Furthermore, women who did not visit the centers (we didn’t see any women in Wheaton or Herndon) couldn’t benefit from the centers’ services.

[…]

The ability of the centers to obtain participation by all of the day laborers was critical to their success, and was not uniformly observed on the task force visits. Herndon partnered their center with an anti-solicitation ordinance and zoning regulation giving property owners a duty to prevent congregation of workers. This seemed to be effective. […]

The Silver Spring center appeared to be particularly unsuccessful in convincing all workers to seek work at the center. On the day of the task force visit at least 30 men were congregating at the 7-Eleven less than a mile from the center. The employment coordinator for CASA indicated she was aware of this problem and that CASA encouraged these men to use the center, but they could not require them to do so.

Back to the Post editorial,

[…] a day-labor center makes eminent good sense; it would move the workers indoors and provide an organizational structure, toilets and possibly classrooms to teach English.

Just because there are indoor toilets available doesn’t mean that the laborers will use them. The laborers don’t like to be indoors because they can’t see the contractors when they come. This is also why so few of them make use of the English classes — they don’t want to be occupied if there’s an opportunity for work.

A center could still be established at the county-leased site, but the city objects.

The City objects because the site is inappropriate, not just because of the problems the laborers cause for the neighborhood, but also because access to that building for contractors is unacceptable, and the current zoning does not allow such a use. Furthermore, the building is too small for the classrooms envisioned, doesn’t meet modern code and there are no occupancy permits granted or even applied for. Does the Post believe that the City should just close their eyes, cover their ears, and go “LA LA LA LA LA” while the County throws good money after bad on a site that just won’t work?

A Catholic church not far away is also offering some of its property — but the city objects to that, too.

The offer from the Catholic church — St. Martin of Tours — came very late in this process, after repeated statements from that same church that they were not willing to host the laborers. The piece of land in question (the vacant lot to the right) has significant problems as well, that have not been addressed in the church’s offer.

Update: The New MoCo Progressive also has some thoughts on this editorial.