Gaithersburg to open day-laborer center

The Gaithersburg City Council has agreed to open a permanent day-laborer center by winter, after more than a year of trying to fix the problem of 50 to 100 immigrants and illegal aliens loitering outside a downtown church while looking for work.

“We’ve got to deal with the problems in Gaithersburg,” council member Stanley J. Alster said Thursday, minutes before casting his vote to approve the center. “I think it’s time we take action.”

The 3-1 vote capped a three-hour meeting that included a presentation by the Gaithersburg Police Department, a public-comment session filled with accusations of racism against Hispanics and a heated debate among council members.

Several council members acknowledged the tentative site — a storefront in the Festival Shopping Center off Interstate 270 — is not a “perfect solution” to complaints of crime, public urination and other problems associated with day laborers, who are mostly Hispanic and illegal aliens.

However, they said a bus stop near the site and a fence that separates it from nearby homes is a “good first step.”

City Manager David Humpton now will submit the council’s resolution to Montgomery County officials, who will pursue a lease with Nellis Corp., which manages the strip mall.

“We still have many steps to go,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

Nellis executives said they attended the meeting Thursday but have not decided whether to lease the space.

They said last week they would talk with tenants before agreeing to a deal.

“All of the presentations were impressive and gave us a lot to think about,” the company said yesterday. “We hope answers will be forthcoming within the next few weeks.”

Many people at the meeting supported the site, but several nearby residents and merchants said the center might hurt business and bring more crime and the kind of nuisance problems that occurred outside the church.

The lone dissenting vote came from council member Henry F. Mafraffa Jr., who said the center will bring illegal aliens to the city.

“If the county wants to do this, why don’t they step up and make it part of their larger unemployment program in the county?” he asked. “Why should we be asked to solve a national problem?”

Vice Mayor John B. Schlichting — whom Mr. Humpton said has financial interest in JBG Rosenfeld Retail, the leasing and management company that co-owns the shopping center — abstained from voting.

The decision came amid pressure from county officials, who have committed $125,000 to the solution and last month urged the city to “redouble its efforts” to find a site. More than 30 landlords had already rejected requests for them to leases space.

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