STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
The admission of 18,000 to 20,000 Mexican farm workers by Aug. 1 is being prepared today by the California-Arizona Growers Association.
Dr. Bernard F. Rosenblum, medical officer in charge, Mexican border area, Foreign Quarantine Division, U.S. Public Health Service, was in Calexico yesterday to discuss with local staff members just how examinations would be set up for Mexican workers.
A spokesman for the growers’ association said that so far everything was on a tentative basis and that to date no request for Mexican farm workers has been made to the federal government.
40 years ago
Arrangements for an illegal alien to vote in a union election from his quarters in the Immigration Alien Detention Facility, El Centro, have been apparently canceled today.
The alien, Rosendo Arreola-Castellon had previously been employed by MelPak Ranches in Thermal, which is conducting a three-way union election today.
Raymond Lyons, supervisor detention and deportation officer for the El Centro facility, said today that previous arrangements made with Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) agents to allow Arreola-Castellon to vote from the detention center have been canceled.
30 years ago
CALEXICO — California Rural Legal Assistance faced off with the Western Growers Association Tuesday night hoping to convince the City Council to improve the situation for farm laborers who loiter in the early morning on city streets waiting to be picked up for work.
Farm workers crowded into the back of the council chambers while up front a dozen California Women for Agriculture members sported the green and white colors of the organization and asked, along with others, that the councilmen not restrict the hiring of farm workers.
CRLA proposed an ordinance, adopted last month by the Planning Commission, prohibiting the hiring of workers before 4 a.m. and requiring farmers and contractors to pick up workers on private property designated for hiring or in El Hoyo, a large area on Second Street near the New River used in the past for farm labor hiring.
20 years ago
Think of the Metropolitan Water District as a family of 27 members.
It’s big and diverse, spread over six counties serving 16 million people. And it’s in the middle of a giant tug-of-war, with Imperial Valley water as part of the prize.
MWD’s biggest member, the San Diego County Water Authority, is trying to strike a deal with the Imperial Irrigation District to buy at least 200,000 acre-feet a year of conserved Valley water.
San Diego has battled with MWD to make a water swap with IID work. A third of MWD’s member agencies have banded together from Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and Ventura counties to let San Diego know they also want in on the negotiations.