The launch date for the controversial day laborer site on NE
MLK and Everett has been pushed back nearly six weeks to June 16.

Romeo Sosa, director of VOZ, the organization in charge of running
the center, had said as recently as last week that the original May 6
opening day, which VOZ has been advertising for weeks, was firm.

That changed on Wednesday, April 30. “We are working with an
architect to figure out the logistics. The trailer, tent, and the
port-a-potties are being worked out. We just need some more time,” Sosa
says.

A $200,000 brainchild of Mayor Tom Potter, the day laborer site is
the city’s answer to the dozens of workers that solicit work on MLK, E
Burnside, and SE Ankeny. The site is supposed to offer an organized,
worker-friendly area where day laborers can offer their services to
potential employers.

The delay, however, came as a surprise to many involved in the
project. Carmen Rubio, the mayor’s primary liaison to VOZ, says she
only received word of the delay this past Friday, a scant four days
before the site was supposed to open.

“Everyone up until Friday believed the site would be open Tuesday,
May 6,” Rubio says. “Nonetheless, we have full confidence in VOZ and
are looking forward to the opening.”

Since the project was approved in late March, the mayor’s office had
been taking a hands-off approach to the site, putting its trust in Sosa
and VOZ to handle the logistics of the operation.

Rubio now wants to make sure the mayor’s office is doing more to
offer VOZ whatever guidance they need. “Because this is the first time
VOZ is managing a project, more technical assistance may be required,”
she says. “There’s going to be more regular checkups now.”

Other city officials involved in the project remain optimistic about
the site’s eventual opening, and tried to extinguish any concerns the
delay was the result of poor planning.

“One shouldn’t cast judgment on VOZ’s ability to manage,” insists Ty
Kovatch, Commissioner Randy Leonard’s chief of staff. Last
week—before the delay was announced—Leonard pushed an
emergency ordinance that exempted the day laborer site from several
building codes, to expedite the process.

Some business owners adjacent to the proposed site, however, are
frustrated with the overall project—and this delay is just the
most recent issue. “When the site was approved and we asked the city
for sufficient time to write up a Good Neighbor Agreement [GNA], the
city kept saying the date was set and there was nothing they could do,”
complains Darrell Chasteen, of Precision Motor Car. “This just shows
what the city said was crap, and the date could’ve been moved.”

That said, most business owners in the area are pleased they will
now have the opportunity to finish the agreement with VOZ before the
site opens. They currently expect to have something ready to be signed
by June. Teri Pierson, one of two Good Neighborhood Agreement
facilitators, says the process is moving along and believes “the sides
are making good progress.”