LA GANGS, PARKS….AND THE CRIME RATE:
According to the LA Times, Antonio Villaraigosa says that the drop in gang crime this summer is due to the launch of the first stage of his gang programs, which consisted of—among other things—-keeping parks in eight specifically targeted gang-haunted areas open late and offering programs in those parks during the summer months. (The parks went back to their usual hours as of Labor Day.)
So here’s my question: Since the mayor is, in fact, in charge of Parks & Rec why has the city not made keeping those parks open late, complete with youth programs, a major priority during the school year? Why just for the summer months? If reducing gang violence is a major issue in our fair city, and giving kids something else to do is helping, why stop now? Surely it can’t be that expensive.
Or was the parks program simply a cosmetic gesture in the direction of gang “prevention” and “intervention designed to give the mayor a, you know, cosmetic victory for the first stage of his gang program—-when the real credit for the drop belongs to the LAPD putting more officers on the streets in those eight areas? (Which, admittedly, the mayor strongly supported.)
Just asking.
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MLK-HARBOR HOSPITAL…..AGAIN
Yes, all hospitals have problems and, yes, even gold-standard Cedars Sinai nearly killed Dennis Quaid’s infant twins accidentally, but honestly, people.
Los Angeles needs Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital generally, and the city also needs the hospital to eventually reopen it’s emergency center, but reports like the one released Monday do not help. According to the LA Times:
More employees at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital have significant criminal histories than Los Angeles County officials have previously disclosed, according to a report released today by the auditor-controller.
The report found that 152 of the 1,604 employees working at King in August 2007 had criminal or arrest records.
This is not to say that people with criminal records cannot be hired. But the way the hospital handled the vetting (to use the word-of-the-month) is not exactly confidence building, given the administrators many broken promises.
The report also says, according to the Times, that:
…King staffers often deliver patient care that is inferior to the care provided at other county facilities because the exams that assess their competency are weaker and managers improperly allowed staffers to take the exams numerous times until they passed.
Great.
More LA city issues—schools, gangs and immigration—when I get back on Wednesday.
Given the hospital’s record, would you admit that there are problems with affirmative action hiring?
I wonder if Ted Kennedy went to a brain surgeon who had to take his medical exams several times to pass–in fairness, of course?
Isn’t that Coach Pete Carroll at the right side of the picture? It looks as if the mayor is dropping down too low and that his pass could be knocked down by a rushing lineman.
The Daily News article highlights stats for Pacoima, showing that there were much fewer crimes, from assaults to killings, near the parks during this period. But that suggests that the gangs just moved away from the parks while they were occupied by people engaged in non-gang-related activities. If you want to curb gangs community and citywide, it takes gang injunctions and policing.
Plus, as the Rand Corp. study quoted in the LA Times yesterday confirms, illegal gangmembers who are repeatedly arrested and deported but come right back into the US are the core of the gang problem and that has to be addressed — by forcing ICE to not only better enforce the borders (as it’s trying to do finally, but often stupidly like building a fence that abruptly stops here and there leaving huge gaps), but to compile a database of previously convicted illegals with fingerprints etc., so if they return after deportation, they can be ID’d by all law enforcement agencies and can’t lie about their identity and citizenship, as they do now.
DA Cooley and Baca have to insist on this cooperation from the feds, confirm citizenship status instead of taking a felon’s word for it (smart move on the face of it), and meanwhile Cooley’s office has to stop releasing these illegal gangbangers back onto the streets again and again.
Sounds like this program enabled kids normally scared to go to parks to use them for sports and recreation, which is good — instead of, as usual, turning over parks we pay for over to gangs. But there’s no indication that it worked to curb gangs or engage gangmembers in any way.
Mainly it’s all PR to promote Janice Hahn’s property tax for gang programs, which is facing homeowner opposition because it unfairly targets them again (as does the trash fee hike for cops, which are disproportionately not going to where homeowners are, leaving areas from Westwood to Encino to the hills vulnerable to robbery), and because there’s no proof that any existing gang programs work. Currently, putting the gang monies only into designated “gang reduction zones” leaves out areas from Venice/Mar Vista (as that other old leftie Bill Rosendahl keeps saying) to Hahn’s San Pedro area, so they want “another revenue stream” to remedy that.
The bizarrely grandiose claims Hahn and Tony Cardenas made in Council, that this money would “solve the gang problem in L A once and for all,” are just insulting — another page from the Obama “hope and change” rhetoric calling for lots more money to effect miraculous changes, without any basis in fact.
These park programs have a valid purpose in making parks usable by “normal” people, but they only temporarily push away gangbangers to other areas. Keeping these programs in operation year-round at great cost wouldn’t change that.
Thank you Celeste for having the guts to put the facts on the table. You stated what I’ve heard at countless community meetings about the so called Summer Nights Program. Please and why is the Mayor taking credit for the drop in crime when the credit should go to the LAPD officers who have working their butts off all summer long to do what they can. LAPD not Mayor Villaraigosa is the winner here. Again, Villaraigosa spends millions on crap and can afford to put money into Parks and Recs