Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave his second annual State of the City address yesterday at East Valley High School. In it, Antonio made gangs the new, glitzy initiative—which is a good thing, of course, if he follows through. Right now AV’s plan, as we’ve seen it, amounts to an outline, not a plan. But it’s a good beginning. Here are a few of the high points:
1. He said he’s going to appoint a gang czar in the next couple of days. (Cool. Now we just have to persuade him to appoint someone sensible. Maybe somebody could quietly slip him my list of suggested candidates.)
2. He or she will oversee a $168 million gang violence prevention/intervention effort. (That’s a start.)
3. He’ll designate eight “gang reduction zones”-–to be saturated, not just with long enforcement, but with all kinds of services from counseling to dropout prevention, to jobs, to tattoo removal….and the like. (Again, great if he really does it. He’s not the first person to suggest such a thing.)
4. He even said he plans to get someone (the city? the state?) to cough up $30 mil to expand Father Greg Boyle’s Homeboy Industries citywide. (To exactly no one’s surprise, I like this idea.)
There was a bit more, but those are the stand outs. More substantive thoughts on this in the next few days.
So, it’ll cost around $200 million as starters. This is on top of all the anti-poverty and law enforcement programs addressing the same problems. What has been accomplished with them and what can we really expect with the new programs?
Maybe the money would be better spent working with men to convince them to be part of the families that they create and to help raise their kids rather than desert them.
There are root issues that go much deeper than removing tatoos. It’s a shame that people dance around real solutions rather than simply try to look as if they are making a difference.
And his plans to “Reform” the LAUSD? What’s that the Church Lady says? “Oh, never mind!”