Troubled by fiscal problems, the Malibu day laborer site makes public plea as its new executive director is announced and it begins a fundraising campaign.
By Paul Sisolak / Special to The Malibu Times
Supporters of the Malibu Community Labor Exchange are being called upon to help raise funds to keep the local nonprofit’s doors open during some recent financial struggles.
Although a reorganization of the group is in the works and a new executive director has been selected, an emergency campaign seeking up to $3,000 has been launched to save the Labor Exchange from extinction before the changeover can happen.
If the money is not raised in time, the hiring site, one of the few local resources where day laborers can regularly find work and employers their workers, may go under after 18 years of existence in Malibu.
“We’re going to be working real hard in the next couple of weeks to do a media campaign and be out there to try to attract attention,” said an optimistic Mona Loo, its longtime director. “We know we have supporters out there.”
Loo said, due to the poor economy, the group began running out of funds after December, and can barely survive until the new fiscal year begins next month. She said relations are good with city officials, who financially support the Labor Exchange, as well as with the exchange’s executive board, who she recently approached for emergency money.
“They’ve come through, but I just can’t keep doing that,” she said. “There are a lot of things out of our control, but we’re on good terms with the city and county.”
The Labor Exchange operates on an $80,000 annual budget, Loo said, employing one full-time person, Oscar Mondragon. Mondragon, who for 10 years worked with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, oversees the exchange’s day-to-day operations. Loo said the Labor Exchange also carries three different insurance policies covering liabilities for flood, fire and other damages, as well as utility bills at the site on Civic Center Way near Los Angeles County administrative offices. Approximately $50,000 covers Mondragon’s salary, and the rest is used for the insurance and utilities and other costs.
One solution, Loo said, to raise funds is to begin a social media/Facebook/online push for funds. There are also tentative plans for an open house in September.
But the biggest change is in the passing of the executive director torch to Al Sturgeon, a Pepperdine University law student who stepped forward and will take over leading the Labor Exchange when he completes the bar exam in August. He will replace Loo, who has led the exchange’s board of directors since its formation in 1992.
“He has a wonderful background,” noted Loo, who said that Sturgeon, who will also begin teaching at Pepperdine, previously worked with Habitat for Humanity in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“There really is an issue in terms of being able to pay the bills right now, from what I’ve been told,” Sturgeon said. “It is financially difficult right now.”
Loo said Sturgeon is being brought on board with the primary goal of structurally reorganizing the workings of the exchange.
“I don’t think it’s a crisis time, it just needs a little bit of organization,” Sturgeon said. “The tone is that times are tough right now, but we’re not panicking. In a couple of months, we’ll try to reorganize a little bit and make sure things are in place, so we don’t have these emergencies again. I feel Malibu has been supportive of the Labor Exchange.”
Sturgeon said some solutions are to get the Labor Exchange’s community supporters communicating more with its board of directors, ensuring that they re-present businesses and schools in Malibu. Also, he said, a reworking of the nonprofit’s checks and balances could better secure things fiscally.
“We’re going to make it,” he said. “We just need to weather the next few months.”
Loo said it is unlikely the exchange will lose its lease with the county, which is on a month-by-month basis, but there has been talk of relocating the Labor Exchange to another, undetermined location in Malibu (the exchange pays not rent for its site). However, plans as is are calling for the labor site to stay where it is, which was recently the short-lived home of a community garden that county authorities ordered dismantled due to improper permitting.
More information about the Malibu Labor Exchange can be obtained online at www.malibulaborexchange.org