Lakewood's day laborers need DIGNITY!

To Bob Singer: Let the immigrants wait at cederbridge, or perhaps just build a stadium for them. Oh by the way, maybe you should start checking these "immigrants" for their Green Cards. APP: Alice Kelsey wants the day laborers who line Clifton Avenue each morning to have a sense of dignity, but she worries the Township Committee's plan to create a no-standing zone in the downtown area will make that impossible."If we have a "no-stopping zone,' the immigrants cannot get jobs in this town," said Kelsey, who lives in Original Leisure Village. Whether Kelsey is right may depend on legal advice the township gets about a proposal to make the downtown — a loosely defined area bounded by Route 9 and Lexington Avenue and First to Fifth streets — a "no-stopping zone." Mayor Meir Lichtenstein said Township Attorney Steven Secare and Public Safety Director Al Peters are researching the plan."Hopefully, we'll have something prepared for us by the end of the month," Lichtenstein said at last week's Township Committee meeting....Lichtenstein declined comment on Monday."We, of course, are not trying to hurt anybody's dignity," he said at last week's meeting. "Many of the people who are being picked up . . . are not necessarily being treated with dignity."Lichtenstein said many of the day laborers complain about not getting paid or about exploitation by employers."I don't know how it could be dignified to stand in the freezing cold for two-and-a-half hours to get picked up," Lichtenstein said.Downtown merchants have complained that men waiting for work can impede pedestrian traffic, intimidate customers and give the downtown a poor public image.The township's answer, up until last month, was turning a parking lot between Clifton Avenue and Route 9 into a publicly funded muster zone. That idea, which would have cost about $80,000 to implement, was dropped because merchants no longer supported it.Coles said he still favors "some type of muster zone.""Don't forget these people that are the problem are human beings that have families they have to feed," he said.Committeeman Robert W. Singer said Lakewood has to find an answer to the problem soon because the number of men waiting for work has increased over the past few years."We have become a mecca now to attract people to come for day laborers," Singer said. "It's not going to get better. It's going to get worse."