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October 1998

Building owner to force activists out
MATTAWA (Wednesday 10-7-98)--A coalition of farmworker "advocates" have taken over the employment security office here, contending they will "offer help" to farmworkers living in makeshift housing along the Columbia River.
 
And, apparently, services will be offered by force.
 
"We cannot allow business to go on as usual", said Roberto Maestas, coalition honcho and executive director of the Seattle based El Centro de la Raza.
 
Maestas said the office takeover was designed as a "wakeup call" to state and federal governments and area farmers to the "crisis" faced by Eastern Washington farmworkers.
 
Though the group strongarmed its way into a state office and intimidated state employees, it appears no arrests are in the works. Gov. Gary Locke said he won't press charges, and Mattawa Police Chief Randy Black hasn't got his handcuffs out.
 
Grant County Undersheriff Mike Shay said from Ephrata that "They've apparently reached some kind of agreement down there."
 
Occupation of the building hearkens back nearly 30 years, when a rag-headed, fist raising Maestas occupied an old downtown Seattle school building, which Seattle School District had traded to the city of Seattle. The city reportedly wound up making Maestas and El Centro pay one U.S. dollar for the building and land, believed valued in the millions today. It worked then.
 
But it probably won't work in Mattawa today.
 
Don Toci, owner of the office rental complex at 319 E. Government Rd., said he's not even sure Employment Security's lease there allows persons to occupy the premises 24 hours a day. If it doesn't, he may be able to force ES to shoo coalition members out of the place.
 
And he surely won't stand for Maestas and minions to pull off a Seattle-style caper.
 
"That's not a government building. It's privately owned. If they try to take my building, there will be fisticuffs," Toci told YVN. Moreover, he said the state will be responsible for paying for any damages to his property caused by coalition members' occupation of the site.
 
A nervous Employment Service staffer told YVN this afternoon she couldn't answer reporter questions because "They are watching me." In the background, listeners could hear many voices buzzing, mostly in Spanish.
 
Activists reportedly said they plan to stay in the office "indefinitely" and use it as a headquarters for migrant services. So far, they told reporters earlier, it's about their only resource.
 
"We don't have money, cars or lawyers," Maestas said. But he said "We know how to mobilize people and get them to address a critical need."
 
Groups in the coalition include: