As expected, there were plenty of fireworks at Monday’s City Council meeting, in particular when it came time for the council to address E-Verify.

The free online tool uses Social Security numbers to determine if a person is legally allowed to work in the United States. A discussion of whether or not it should be used in Simi Valley opened up city leaders to attacks by those who thought enough wasn’t being done locally to combat illegal immigration.

“There are between 12 (million) and 20 million illegal aliens in this country, and Simi Valley is part of the problem,” resident Steve Frank told the council. “I’ll ask you these questions: How many businesses have lost contracts with the city because they’ve hired illegal aliens? None. How many businesses have lost a business license? None. How many illegal aliens have been reported to ICE? Very few, if any. . . . This city is protecting illegal aliens.”

Heated words were exchanged, ideas were debated, but despite the fact that some council members expressed lingering doubts over the effectiveness of the system, the council ultimately and unanimously approved the use of EVerify for new city hires and certain city contractors.

It is the first city in Ventura County to do so and the 16th in the state of California.

The approval is for a pilot program, which will come back to the council in a year for review.

“It gives us a chance to see the system; it gives the government a chance to improve their system,” said Councilmember Michelle Foster, who expressed the most concern over E-Verify, along with Councilmember Steve Sojka. “What it does is it provides for us the time necessary before we implement a program without proven results.”

It was Mayor Paul Miller who asked last month that the issue be put on the agenda, a request that was made a week after he wrote a letter to the Acorn calling EVerify “unreliable” and saying he wouldn’t feel comfortable moving forward with the program until its flaws were fixed.

That letter was in response to one written by mayoral candidate Bob Huber in the July 23 edition, in which he called for the city to enact E-Verify.

On Monday, Miller said neither his request nor approval is evidence that he “flip-flopped” on the issue but instead that the city was doing its due diligence, monitoring the program since the council first asked staff to research it in January.

“This city always carefully researches what it does before we jump into it. When we rejected it . . . a few months ago, it wasn’t saying we didn’t want to control illegal immigration,” he said. “Obviously we’re all on the same side here.”

Developed by the federal government, E-Verify can be used by businesses and local government to determine the legal status of a job applicant.

Employers enter a new hire’s information from their Form I- 9—including name, birth date and Social Security number—into the system, which cross-checks the information with Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to see if it’s a match.

Dozens of residents were in the audience at Monday’s meeting; 10 spoke on the topic. All but one were strongly in favor of the city using E-Verify.

Those in support said the system would protect local jobs for legal residents.

Jerome Walsh, an out-of-work carpenter, said he was in favor of E-Verify for selfish reasons: He needs a job. He urged the council to “do the right thing” and require its contractors to use the program.

“That’s the way you should do business in Simi Valley,” he said. “What happened to truth and honor?”

Emotions ran high during the public comments portion of the hearing, hitting their peak when Frank came to the podium.

“Just go behind Wells Fargo, off of L.A. Avenue, about 3 to 4 o’clock and you could have a couple dozen illegal aliens like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “If you really wanted to do what the city is supposed to do.”

The statement elicited a sharp response from Mayor Pro Tem Glen Becerra, who asked Frank how he knows the people are illegal aliens.

Frank responded by saying that “none of them speak English; they come in on bicycles; they’re picked up by cars.”

Becerra then asked if Frank had determined they are illegal “because of the color of their skin,” a implication that caused Frank to erupt in anger.

“That is a racist statement! I never said the color of their skin,” he yelled over the mayor’s pounding of his gavel. “You’re asking a racist question! I don’t answer racist questions.”

Miller ultimately called the two to order.

After Frank’s comments, Huber addressed the council. He said the mayor had misrepresented the facts about E-Verify and encouraged the council to support its adoption.

“This is all about jobs. Please enact this. There are a lot of citizens out of work,” he said.

Miller responded by asking Huber if the Ventura County Community College District, of which he is chair, uses E-Verify. Huber said no, it hadn’t adopted it yet.

Huber further defended himself by saying there is a “huge difference” between the city and the district—the district doesn’t grant business licenses. But Becerra pointed out that the district does have construction contracts, including a recent bond for $356 million. Becerra said the district could have used E-Verify to protect those jobs.

In an interview after the meeting, Huber characterized the council’s questions as “an attack job,” “irrelevant” and “pure politics.” He said the issue that night was Simi, not VCCCD.

“I don’t have a problem with the E-Verify at the college district or any other entity,” he said, noting that he put E-Verify on the agenda for the district’s next board meeting.

Despite having concerns over the system’s current inability to screen for identity theft and its low rate of identifying unauthorized workers, the City Council was on board early on to implement E-Verify for city employees since it wouldn’t take much more staff time or resources.

However, council members Foster and Sojka were not initially in favor of requiring city contractors to use the system.

Foster said current city contracts require that contractors and subcontractors employ only people authorized to work in the United States, and Sojka said the city should first see if E-Verify is effective before expanding its role.

Both agreed that without an audit such a requirement would be unenforceable. But to do an annual audit would keep city staff busy for hundreds of hours.

As an alternative, Becerra suggested randomly sampling a few contractors instead of a fullscale audit to keep the companies honest.

Sojka and Foster felt comfortable moving forward with that idea.

“It’s not a perfect system. I support it because we’re implementing it in a way that doesn’t have an effect on governmental resources,” Foster said in an interview after the meeting.