April 9, 2003

By Camille T. Taiara

NINE MONTHS INTO a political tug-of-war between the Mayor's Office and La Raza Centro Legal over funding for the Day Labor Program, a review panel voted to award the contract to a rival organization – only to have the entire process derailed by ethical concerns.

On March 6, the panel, overseen by mayoral appointee Sergio Canjura of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services, selected Oakland-based Volunteers of America Bay Area to receive $100,000 a year to operate the program.

But local advocates contend the bid process was rigged against La Raza Centro Legal from the start. At the request of Sup. Tom Ammiano, the city's Budget Analyst's Office is completing an investigation into the contracting procedures at the Mayor's Office, and for now the bid appears to be on hold.

Hanging in the balance is not only the future of city funding for the program but also, and more to the point, laborers' basic right to search for work on the street.

Resisting the crackdown

The Day Labor Program, under La Raza Centro Legal's care, has spent close to a year battling the San Francisco Police Department's crackdown on the workers along Cesar Chavez Street – the majority of whom are homeless Latino immigrant men. They've marched on City Hall dozens of times and have gone so far as to demand the termination of the Mission District's head cop, Capt. Greg Corrales, at a March 27 San Francisco Police Commission hearing.

The group has also fought with city administrators for more than two years to get public funds and use permits for a building in the Cesar Chavez Street area, where contractors have been soliciting laborers for decades.

Volunteers of America, which operates a day labor program in Oakland, seems to embrace an altogether different imperative. Day laborer advocates in Oakland's Fruitvale District say the organization implicitly supports Oakland's Anti-Solicitation Ordinance – a law passed in July 2001 that makes it illegal for contractors to pick up laborers on the street – by collaborating with Oakland police to keep day laborers off public sidewalks.

"What we attempt to do is help people gain temporary employment, hopefully leading to permanent employment in a safe, supportive environment that has the resources to provide training and a connecting point between day laborers and potential employers," said Volunteers of America Bay Area president John Bailey, who would not comment on his organization's policy regarding laborers' right to look for work outdoors.

But Street-Level Health Project president Andrew Herring, who has been helping provide health and social services to day laborers in Oakland for more than two years, had a different story to tell. "According to the day laborers, if you openly oppose the [antisolicitation] ordinance, you're no longer welcome at Volunteers of America's hiring hall," he told the Bay Guardian.

It's the kind of role that advocates fear Mayor Willie Brown, under pressure from a handful of vocal neighbors and property owners in the Cesar Chavez Street vicinity, would like to see the day labor program play in San Francisco as well.

"The [contract] review process was biased in two ways," said Jennifer Friedenbach of the Coalition on Homelessness, who also lives near where the day laborers congregate and served on the review panel. "First, the scoring sheet was designed to be weighted against [La Raza Centro Legal]. Secondly, the people on the panel were handpicked to ensure that the outside agency would get the contract."

Friedenbach accuses Canjura of making sure that three of the five panelists "were clearly and definitively opposed to La Raza getting the money again, regardless of how crappy the second proposal was." What's more, she reports that two out of the four scoring categories focused on community relations – accounting for 60 out of a total of 100 points. Typically, the brunt of the score would rest on the project design, outcome, and budget plan, said Friedenbach, who has served on numerous proposal-review panels for the city.

"They told us specifically not to do any scoring based on the budget. That was bizarre. If you look at the budget, VOA has three staff that they're planning on hiring, no outside money coming in, and relies 100 percent on city funds. They don't have a building identified, and they have no way of paying for a building once they do identify one.... They didn't even have a plan for getting employers. They didn't have any services for the clients [other than offering them the health care plan La Raza Centro Legal currently offers laborers].... There was nothing about workers' rights in VOA's proposal."

La Raza Centro Legal's application, on the other hand, "was probably one of the best proposals I've ever read," said Friedenbach, who submitted a written complaint about the process to MONS director Ron Vinson four days after the review panel vote.

Repeated calls to MONS were directed to Canjura, who didn't return any of our calls by press time. The mayor's press secretary, P.J. Johnston, claimed not to know about the status of the day labor contract.

Demanding justice

Ammiano, who is running for mayor and has supported La Raza Centro Legal in the past, has stepped in to sort out a messy situation. "The program has become a political football," he said

Indeed, the Mayor's Office of Community Development issued the initial request for proposals (RFP) for the contract in July 2002. La Raza Centro Legal was the only organization to submit a proposal. Rather than grant them the contract, MOCD issued a second, amended RFP August 26 – to which both La Raza Centro Legal and Volunteers of America Bay Area applied.

Renee Saucedo, director of La Raza Centro Legal's Day Labor Program, said the city's Immigrants Rights Commission was to oversee the decision-making process for the second RFP. Yet MOCD later handed over the decision-making process to MONS instead, after the Immigrant Rights Commission passed a resolution in support of La Raza Centro Legal.

"There are all kinds of accusations flying around about cooked results and personal vendettas," continued Ammiano, who asked the Budget Analyst's Office to conduct an independent review of the selection process and intends to hold a hearing in front of the board's Finance Committee on the issue.

In the meantime, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a lawsuit March 25 on behalf of La Raza Centro Legal, charging the city and county of San Francisco, Brown, and Vinson and Canjura of MONS with infringing on the group's First Amendment rights by cutting off funding for the program in retaliation for the group's political organizing.

The mayor's decision to withdraw funding from La Raza Centro Legal came less than a month after day laborers marched on City Hall on Father's Day last year to protest an increase in ticketing of workers along Cesar Chavez Street.

Shortly after the march, Pam Davis, director of the Mayor's Office of Community Development, told La Raza Centro Legal executive director Anamaría Loya the program had become too political, and said they intended to withdraw funding. (Press secretary Johnston later told the Bay Guardian the program had been put up for bid because a civil grand jury report advised that contracts for more than $50,000 should be subject to competitive bidding.)

Although their lawsuit was in the works for months, MALDEF and La Raza Centro Legal opted not to file their papers until the Mayor's Office's RFP process was given a chance to work.

"We have been advised that there are some legal issues under review," Volunteers of America's Bailey said. "As far as I'm concerned right now, we have not been awarded the contract."

Meanwhile, as the struggle over the day labor program funds plays out in City Hall and the courts, the battle is taking its toll on La Raza Centro Legal and, ultimately, the day laborers they serve.

"We've been maintaining the Day Labor Program without a penny from the city," said La Raza Centro Legal's Day Labor Program director, Renee Saucedo, who reported that city money accounted for about one-third of the Day Labor Program budget and that staff have cut their hours as a result of losing those funds – which helped pay for the service component of the program. (Money for organizing, she explained, comes from private sources.) "It's definitely put a strain on our organization. Even though we've taken a cut in hours, we're still maintaining the programs. So people are working extra hours for no pay, basically."