AURORA | For more than a decade, the intersection of East Colfax Avenue and Dayton Street has served as a popular place for day laborers to congregate and wait for employers to pick them up. Now city officials are in the process of purchasing the property.
At a regular Aurora City Council meeting Dec. 7, council members approved an agreement to pay $400,000 for the corner that totals about 17,500 square feet.
The measure was approved 9-1, with Councilwoman Renie Peterson voting no. During the meeting she said her constituents, some of whom live along the eastern stretches of Colfax, believe acquiring the property is a waste of taxpayer money. Councilman Brad Pierce was absent from the vote.
Aurora City Councilwoman Sally Mounier, whose ward encompasses the corner where the day laborers congregate, proposed the city purchase the empty parking lot last summer as one way to clean up the area and provide temporary amenities such as a construction trailer and portable toilets for the workers.
Mounier has long sought the city’s action to improve the safety of drivers and day laborers in the area, with individuals darting from one side of the street to the other to catch a potential employer as they drive by.
Mounier said the next step will be to work with El Centro Humanitario — a nonprofit that works with day laborers in Aurora and Denver — as well as area faith organizations to establish the temporary site.
The plan is a reworking of a proposal city officials had with El Centro in 2010, when the organization was housed in the former Aurora Human Rights Center on 14th and Dayton. Mounier said that plan did not work out since they tried to set up a temporary worksite at the center, and most of the workers were unwilling to leave the corner they associated with picking up work.
Sarah Shikes, executive director of El Centro, said the prospect of expanding its programs in a more formal way in Aurora has been a dream of the nonprofit for seven years.
“The space that the City of Aurora is hoping to purchase would be a great start to this effort,” she said. “El Centro is invested in working with the city as well as key collaborators including nonprofits, churches and businesses in the area to fundraise and hire a site coordinator who would work directly with the day laborers to establish similar protocols that are currently used at our center in Downtown Denver.”
Rich McLean, who has lived in North Aurora for nearly 30 years and also works with a variety of health nonprofits to serve the area, is serving as a resource to El Centro while a final agreement is processed.
“This has been a thorn in the side of Aurora for decades that hasn’t really been addressed until now,” he said of the proposed temporary worksite. “The next hurdle is funding the operations of the Aurora day labor center there. That’s what we’re working on with El Centro. Since this is going to be a win for Aurora itself, we want to work with the Aurora community, especially the businesses around there, to support a structured day labor center where workers are off the street and protected from the elements.”
No mention of day laborers was included in city documents related to the measure. City officials said the issue of the use of the Dayton Street property will need to be approved at a later date, and that city council members have only given the initial approval for the city to purchase the land. The issue will go back to city council chambers at the Dec. 21 city council meeting.
“There are several ways that the property may be used, and that is what council will have to evaluate in the future,” said Julie Patterson, a spokeswoman with the city.
According to city documents, the building is being leased and that lease will expire Jan. 31, 2016. The properties are owned by a single person, and have been listed on and off the market for several years, at one time for $350,000.
Mounier said she also wants the site to double as a parking lot at night for people who want to eat at nearby restaurants and attend theater shows, since the site borders the Aurora Cultural Arts District.
City needs to get out of buying properties..
Am i the only one that thinks it’s odd that the city is encouraging the use of illegal immigrants for labor? What about a ss# or its the city recommending they are paid under the table. This is ridiculous put the money into housing for homeless families in the area.
I agree partially. I think they should have ICE stationed nearby and clean up this illegal immigrant mess, not provide them with shelter and bathrooms. Does anyone on the Aurora City Council understand they are the reason for job loss in America? Can anyone there see beyond their nose? What should be happened, is the police should arrest the ’employers’ picking up these illegals and putting them in jail.
do we really need to spend $400,000 in order to clean up or provide portapotties?
This is the biggest waste on tax payers money…Have worked in the area for 20 years this will not change a thing. They will still run in front of car, it’s so funny, that our city council has no clue what is going on. Why is this ok to pay people cash, under the table…j
Aurora city council is now in the business of changing
neighborhoods. Councils plan to repopulate the Flecher area by subsidizing a
proposed center of illegals for a day labor office to operate on Dayton Street. Awarding the new business venture a haven as an open door opportunity to sell cheap labor. The result? More unemployment and lowering wages for Americans. But who cares, the city on the other hand will raise taxes on the licensed tradesmen that holds a license to be a do some of the same work legitimately.
Any tradesman(Journeyman/Supervisor level) working a job by the hour in Aurora now is saddled to the privilege of having to hold his own city business license every year@$ 35 plus giving the city access to his books and then can be ordered to pay more tax. Is the city going to pay attention to what work
the illegals do, think again.
For reasons I can only guess, Aurora Council continue to lower the standards via illegal labor. This proposal of course would not affect anyone working directly for and drawing a city pay-check. It’s abundantly clear economic reality, proper adherence to immigration law never seems to exist or
contained within the high minded thinking from this leadership, only rationalizations.
So, Council– don’t say Aurora doesn’t aim to be a sanctuary city, this is more
evidence.
.