So let’s see, with no definition in hand of what a gang intervention program should be, and Laura Chick sorting through the paperwork to figure out why the millions they’re spending aren’t doing any good and Connie Rice putting her head in her hands muttering “You’ve wasted every nickel of it so far,” Ms. Hahn is merrily putting the cart before the horse. Memo to Janice. Wise stewardship of other people’s money behooves you to intelligently use the money you already have before you ask for more. This is like telling your boss, “I know I’m never on time and I’m always screwing up and you’re losing business on account of me. But if you give me a raise, I’ll do better. This time I mean it.” Nobody ever achieved success by rewarding failure.

posted by Wally | 1:20 AM | 0 comments

Friday, October 26, 2007

TVR GANGSTER CONVICTED.
Timothy McGhee was convicted of homicide yesterday after years of sitting in County waiting for his trial. Variously know as “Huero” or “Eskimo,” McGhee, a former Criminal Justice student at Cal Poly Pomona, was decribed as being something less than a traditional gangster and more of a spree or thrill killer. Unlike his former associate, the King of Drew Street who was all about business, McGhee’s assaults and homicides often had nothing at all to do with business. A lot of his capering didn’t make him, TVR or the Meros a nickle.

posted by Wally | 8:28 AM | 17 comments

Thursday, October 25, 2007

THEY’RE COMING THICK AND FAST.
Last week, the US Attorney indicted a whole bunch of F13 operators. Today, a couple dozen CLCs got rolled up in another Federal beef.

We haven’t seen this level of local and Federal LE activity since the mid to late 1990s when three giant RICO cases blew through town like a freight train and rolled up dozens of Emeros, Associates, shot-callers, key holders, tax collectors and soldiers. You can bet there may be one or more investigations hanging fire somewhere in SoCal.

I don’t generally dispense advice but this is a golden opportunity for gang intervention activists to mobilize and start hitting those streets most impacted by these cases. With the leadership and mid-level managers taken out of circulation, now’s the time to do some serious gang diversion and intervention. If Jeff Carr, LA’s invisible gang czar would maybe hit those streets with a big chart showing who got arrested, why and what kind of time they’re facing, there may be an opportunity to turn the young guns around. A “This Could Be You In Five Years” presentation might reach a few hearts and minds and get these kids on the right track. LA has somewhere between $82 and $100 million to dispense on programs. Once the Scrooge message of the Ghost of Christmas future sinks in, use some of that money to get the at-risk kids into programs.

posted by Wally | 10:22 AM | 14 comments

Friday, September 21, 2007

BACK FROM THE ROAD.
Just to dispel some rumors, I haven’t gone into PC, gotten whacked or retired to a Malibu mansion. I have, however, spent a lot of time doing radio, TV and print promotion for the book, most of it out of town. Believe it or not, this is my first full week back in the Fortress of Solitude since July 25 when the book hit the streets. Not that I’m complaining, but there’s a monumental shift in your life when you go from being a hermit scribe to a creature of promotion.

One of the big changes is that I haven’t been able to stay up to date on what’s happening on the street. Once you start talking way too much about what you’re doing, you actually stop doing it and you’re just talking about it. That make sense?

I’ve got a three-foot stack of stories and documents that need reading and about fifty phone calls to return. Once I whittle through the stack and get on the phone, I’ll be back in the loop and get some fresh information on the site.

Stay tuned for more.

posted by Wally | 8:34 AM | 128 comments

Thursday, July 26, 2007

RADIO ALERT.
For those interested, Armstrong and Getty will have me on the air in about 15 minutes. Sorry for the late notice but that’s life in the big city. I’ve been told they podcast so you can catch it online.

At 12:40 Pacific time, WCCO in Minneapolis on The Jack Rice Show. I think they live stream and podcast as well.

More to come.

posted by Wally | 8:03 AM | 54 comments

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

LONG TIME NO POST.
As you can imagine, getting a book off the launch pad isn’t something you can do on a part time basis. I’ve been going flat out for the three weeks and haven’t had a minute to post.

The book is hitting the stores as we speak while reviewers and media people have gotten early copies. For the most part, the response has been positive. More on that later on. The take from Publisher’s Weekly, however, was generally negative and they took one quote the wrong way. I quoted DA Manzella saying, “We know exactly the kind of families that produce criminals. I’d like to go in there and take them out. But we can’t do that.” What the DA meant was TAKE THEM OUT OF THOSE FAMILIES. Not “take them out” as in terminate them. The intent was clear to everybody that read and edited the manuscript but apparently, you have to spell things out to some people. The point the DA was making was that public policy will not allow kids to be yanked out of environments that we know will produce unhealthy attitudes or destructive behaviors. It was very clear from the context of that entire paragraph exactly what the DA meant. The sentence prior to that stated, “the ultimate road block to a gang is a stable family.” Some people read into things that which they choose to read.

On another topic, be on the lookout for radio appearances. I just got a schedule of potential interviews and I’m waiting for confirmation. If there’s any interest in posting up a schedule of interviews, let’s hear about it.

posted by Wally | 1:08 PM | 31 comments

Friday, June 22, 2007

HE’S FINALLY HERE.
After decades of talking about it, the city finally has a gang — what? Boss? Emperor? Overlord? Call him anything but Czar. According to Rev. Jeff Carr, a Czar is a guy who is forcibly retired in front of a firing squad. Can’t fault him for the analogy.

It’ll be interesting to see how much horsepower he’ll be given and what precisely will he do. At this point, nobody seems to know. The old dictum is that he who holds the purse strings wields the power. But it’s not clear if he’ll have control of doling out funds to intervention programs or pulling the plug on them if they crash and burn like No Guns.

From everything we’ve heard so far, his position is that of advisor to the Mayor. Which doesn’t sound like an executive position. He’s the go-to guy when the Mayor needs to decide on gang issues. This is probably not the way the office should have been organized but the rumor is that Carr was picked more for his ability to solicit grants from public and private sector sources than any actual gang intervention capabilities. We’ll see.

posted by Wally | 8:47 AM | 249 comments

The whole point is not to kick the kids out onto the streets. That’s exactly what we’re trying to get away from.

*********************

While I can admire the desire and nobleness of a school teacher trying to save every single kid, including every gang member, I just feel that is asking way too much for a teacher to teach and also be a gang intervention worker. I am well aware that you can not arrest your way our of the gang problem. I have read many professional opinions including law enforcement and I can see what has happened in California which has too many people in prison and only getting worse. (Maybe we need to legalize some drugs, marijuana?). Also some people feel legalizing drugs would remove the drug money motive and revenue from gangs.

I hope Green-Dot can accomplish the goal of keeping every single student in school, but I see the gang problems as more than just the problem of school educators and Green-Dot charter schools. I would consider it a MAJOR victory if the Green-Dot can keep 85% of the current students in school and expels 15% of the most problematic students to a reform school.

It’s true that we’ll have our work cut out for us at Locke, having to deal with all of the children and not merely the self-selected, but this time we’ll have 2 major advantages over previous Green Dot schools: we’ll have a school campus and not some warehouse to convert, and we’ll save all the money which would normally go into rent. In addition, we’re determined to get FULL FUNDING from the state, not the crumbs left over after the bureaucracy has taken their cut. Monica Garcia, in her brilliant closing speech, pointed out that the district has a $7.7 billion budget, and it serves around 700,000 students. That works out to $11,000 per student. We’re going to fight to get all of the money due our kids, and I won’t be satisfied with less that $10,000 per student. These will give us considerable advantages over previous Green Dot schools.

L.A. Resident,

The whole point is not to kick the kids out onto the streets. That’s exactly what we’re trying to get away from. The New York Times has an interesting story today on changing philosophies around the nation regarding gang intervention, something I think Celeste has some expertise in (and we hope we can get you to share it with us). Simply locking the kids up doesn’t work, and kicking them out is not a proper goal for an educator. Instead, we expect to use the money to get smaller class sizes and more personal intervention with our students, hopefully through an advisory system. This is about really leaving no children behind, in practice, not just in rhetoric.

The issue came up in the context of some of the teachers illustrating how things were in far better control when Dr. Wells was the principal as he was far, far better at handling those things. Whereas, if my memory serves me correctly, the present principal was away at a meeting, and declined to return to campus although his school was having a crisis.

This Locke experiment will see if it can be done by keeping all kids in the school, not just those who sign willingness to work. Or will that be implemented at Locke?

*********************
I personally would not be crying if Green-Dot expels (10%-??%) of the gangsters and problem kids from their schools.

It is far better to provide a good education to 90% of the students at the expense of 10% of the knuckle-heads who ruin the class-room and school for everybody else.

I have seen too many students lives/education ruined at Belmont High school because of cholos in and around the school.

It’s ironic, that last night I met a software engineer who manages software projects using SAP and he has a very good opinion of Deloitte. He mentioned many successful large SAP integration projects he worked on with people from Deloitte. I asked about the LAUSD project and he just gave a big sigh and mentioned the large number of changes that LAUSD has been asking for during this project. I wanted to ask for many more details but he was quickly becoming agitated, I felt like Mike Wallace oops Celeste Fremon.

Another story in Daily News yesterday clarified that the new ten million consulting fee to fix the Deloitte system is going to the EPI-USE system, by a company in Atlanta — which fixed a similar disaster the Deloitte system caused the community college system. So all SAP systems are definitely not the same — Deloitte’s was never even beta tested at a school, before being put into the whole system.

Who was responsible for choosing this untested system, when another(s) was/were available?

Korenstein’s fear that charters are “vouchers in disguise” is pathetic. I wish vouchers weren’t illegal in California.

She, LaMotte and Duffy all just are concerned about maintaining their own, and the teachers’, power, not what’s good for this kids. When 1/4 of the kids who entered as freshmen graduated last year at Locke, and only 10% of the entering class qualifies for Cal State Admission, what are they trying to preserve, exactly?

Fact that many teachers are opposed apparently has more to do with fear or losing their accrued benefits — thanks to the posters here for pointing that out. Wish the Times article did, instead of making it sound like a philosophical difference.

However, I didn’t know that Green Dot usually demands $9,000 per student to do its job, as well as smaller numbers. That does give them an advantage.

This Locke experiment will see if it can be done by keeping all kids in the school, not just those who sign willingness to work. Or will that be implemented at Locke?

Do you have any info about a gang fight at Locke?