A diverse group of more than 30 stakeholders from the Los Altos and Mountain View communities met for the first time May 31 at the Town Crier conference room to discuss day-worker issues and plans to seek a permanent site for the Mountain View Day Workers Center.

Elizabeth Fitting, on the center’s board of directors, said the first meeting allowed the group to connect with each other.

“The goal was to decide how to proceed on finding a permanent center.

In order to do so, we needed to hear from everyone in the community. We made a consensus on the direction and process of the project,” she said.

The California Solutions project, led by Los Altos Mayor Ron Packard, is a project of Community Focus, a non-profit based in San Francisco. The Solutions project offers a mechanism and forum for communities to come together and solve a problem.

Project members will convene for approximately six months.

The team comprises representatives from the cities of Los Altos and Mountain View, police in both jurisdictions, local media, educational organizations, homeowners, commercial property owners and tenants, local foundations, the chambers of commerce, the banking community, the real estate community, immigrant rights organizations, service clubs and representatives from the Mountain View Day Workers Center, including day workers.

Local participants include Los Altos City Manager Phil Rose, Mike Abrams of Community Services Agency, Bob Adams of Partners for a New Generation, Jim Geers of the Day Worker Center advisory board, Los Altos police Capt. Tom Connelly and Marjorie Fujiki of the Peninsula Community Foundation, among others. Several day workers, including Marcos Cedillo, attended the meeting and spoke out.

For more information, call Sarah Rubin at (415) 975-2955, ext. 2. For more information about Community Focus, visit www.communityfocus.org.