 |
TRANSCRIPT OF
APR. 9 COMMUNITY WORKSHOP:
OPENING SESSION
AND WORKING GROUP REPORTS
Mayor Pam O’Connor: I want to welcome you on behalf of the city of Santa Monica and the City Council. And to start out, I did notice one of my fellow Council members, Kevin McKeown is back there, say hello. Good morning, Kevin. And I know I saw Mayor Pro Tem Katz, oh, right here up front. Oh, and we have… we have Councilmember Ken Genser here. Now, we’re going to be… the other councilmembers will be here, and we’re going to be rotating in and out of the meeting because there’s a state law called the Brown Act. But I want to let you know folks are here and, because again, as a community, why we’re all here today, we are all here today because of our concern for the community.
I want to start out by thanking you all for taking the time to come here today to create a community action plan on solutions to gang violence. A lot of you were at the first meeting, the Feb. 26 workshop, and we worked hard to define our challenges, and we’re back here today to help continue that work. I’m hoping that some of you weren’t there, but were encouraged to come today, to help participate, to roll up your sleeves and continue working toward solutions. So if you’re here this time, we’re glad you’re here. And if you know folks who couldn’t make it to either workshop, keep your neighbors posted on what’s going on because that is what builds the fabric and network of community.
At the last workshop, those of you who were here, all of us together, identified a number of major strategies and guiding principles that will apply to all the elements of the work plan that we’re going to develop here today. And just to go over the principles. First one, promote a sense of belonging, respect, and identity – and that key word there, respect, as we all go through this. To reflect cultural ethnic sensitivity and competence, and when I was thinking about that sentence, I thought, to me it also means just getting down to taking an interest in someone else’s background and where they came from. To involve individuals and institutions community-wide, because this is not something that any one person or any one organization can solve. And improving resource coordination and communication among the various agencies.
Our work today is going to be focused on three breakout topics in the main strategy areas that we developed at the February workshop. So I know you’re all raring to go, so I’ll give you a little heads up on those topics areas. Bring It Home, the concept of bringing it home, that’s dealing with youth, parent, and family support. Making It Work – about job development and skills training. And Keeping It Safe – about community-police relations and the physical aspects of the neighborhood. Now all of this is in your packet in more detail, and we’re going to hear more about the road map for the day in a few minutes from our great co-sponsor, State Sen. Sheila Kuehl. Just applaud for her now, and we can applaud for her again.
Now, you all know, in the intervening weeks since the last workshop, we lost two young men of the community to gang violence. And to help us acknowledge the loss of these lives and the community response, we’ve asked Father Michael Gutierrez -- I call him Father Mike -- I don’t say the last name often. But Father Mike, my pastor, by the way, my parish priest, of St. Anne’s Catholic Church, to speak to us today. So, we welcome Father Mike.
Father Michael Gutierrez: Thank you, Mayor O’Connor, Sen. Kuehl, our community here in Santa Monica. Since we came together Feb. 26 and began a community dialogue on reducing gang violence in Santa Monica, many of us have been affected directly and emotionally by the homicide of two young men from our community, Hector Bonilla and Jonathan Fernandez. Both were killed on March 5 at a private gathering at the Moose Lodge on Ocean Park Blvd. The men who shot them are still at large. Twenty-five-year-old Hector leaves a wife and three sons. Jonathan leaves his mother and younger brothers and sisters. Both have extended family and young cousins and nieces and nephews in the Santa Monica schools and pre-schools.
While this tragedy reminds us of the worst society can experience, the response and outpouring of help and kindness throughout the community in the days after Hector and Jonathan’s deaths remind us of the best in human nature and reassure us that good can prevail. The community responded with support – financially, emotionally, spiritually. Funeral and post-funeral gatherings, arrangements were greatly aided by members of the faith community and neighborhood groups. Responding very specifically to the needs of the children and the families were the Santa Monica/Malibu School District Crisis Response Team, the staff at El Nido and Les Enfantes Pre-School, and counselors from St. John’s. Responding to the emotional needs of our youth, high school youth and older youth, and young adults as well as friends of the men killed, were Santa Monica High School staff, St. John’s Crisis Response Team, Family Services Santa Monica, Pico Youth and Family Center, Pico Partnership, and St. Anne’s. High school students held a fundraising carwash, organized activities were done over the school break to educate youth on the futility of the cycle of violence and retaliation. County Mental Health offered debriefings and counseling, not only for families but for the staff of all those agencies and teachers who were greatly affected by the unfamiliar roles they needed to play in helping families, children, and teens deal with grief.
I could name other individuals and groups, including government officials, city staff and media, and the business community who responded with sensitivity and compassion. The outpouring was definitely city-wide. And the community response continues today through your presence here. We thank you for returning to roll up your sleeves and get busy, and making a difference so no more young people in Santa Monica or their families are affected by the cycle of violence. May the lives and deaths of Hector and Jonathan inspire us to constructive action. Let’s share a moment of silence in honor and memory of these two young men before we start our important work. So I invite you now to a moment of silence.
(silence)
State Sen. Sheila Kuehl: Thank you, Father Mike. I think the whole community breathes a sigh of relief whenever you come up to the microphone. It’s really… I don’t know what to say really sometimes. And I think Father Mike has really given us spiritual guidance along with so many other people in trying to get through this. And so many people have said to me, you know, “What can we do?” And this is not going to be the whole answer, I know you know that, but this is going to be a big part of the answer, because every single person here is going to take a piece of something that we could do, and not be told what it is, to participate today in figuring out what it is. The collective wisdom of this community is a lot greater than any one of us or two of us or three of us sitting down at a table and figure out what to do. I think it’s really wonderful that you’re taking time out of your weekend to do this. A lot of the people who were here before at the first workshop, including a number of the young people who were really central to making this a real discussion about what was needed.
And today we’re going to take what we talked about on Feb. 26 and we’re going to create an action plan. Action is about doing, taking it from the idea to the action. When we got together last time we broke up into groups, as I know many of you remember, and we came up with some ideas for youth-centered strategies. This is not what we thought we needed, but youth-centered strategies for decreasing the violence in Santa Monica. We had an opportunity to hear from a panel of experts afterward, try to pull it together and figure out what to do next. So today what we’re doing here is we’re going to take those… what we learned from those workshops on the 26th and to build a real action plan that is achievable in the next two years. Not five years out but within the next two years. And we’re all partners in that process. The city of Santa Monica and the Action Partners we’re going to introduce in just a minute, are going to need the help of the whole community, the participation of the whole community to stop gang violence. It takes us all.
So today we’re going to have an opportunity to share experiences, to listen, to find common ground, and to identify constructive and doable solutions. That is your charge today. So, dialogue is really an essential step in making any plan, solving any problem, moving from talk to action, building and sustaining partnerships, working together over time, that’s going to produce results for us and for the kids that we love.
So before going into the nuts and bolts of what’s going to happen this morning, I want to introduce the Action Partners who are here today. We were trying to think of action figures for them. But so many of the action figures are all about violence, we didn’t know exactly what to do. So we didn’t do that idea. But these Action Partners are about action for nonviolence, action for peace. They’re people from organizations who might be able to and have committed to providing resources like training, jobs, education, school programs, programs targeting at-risk youth. And the Action Partners are people that we all know who are part of the community. They’re here to help us develop and carry into action a doable plan. They are partners for the Bring It Home part of this, of today:
John Deasy. You don’t need to applaud after each name, we’re going to ask you to give them a big round of applause at the end, because I always hate it when I get less applause than the guy before. So, I don’t know if you want to applaud anyway, but... John Deasy, who’s the superintendent of our Santa Monica Unified School District, Larry Miranda from the California Youth Authority, Gil Bautista from County Probation, in the “Make It Work” section, Nat Trives, chair of our Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce. Tom Donner, who’s the president of Santa Monica College, and Nick Somerfield of the Employment Development Department, a very important part of this partnership. In the “Keep It Safe” part, not to be surprised, our Action Partners are Susan McCarthy, the city manager of the city, and Jim Butts, the chief of the Police Department. There are other Action Partners who are going to spread themselves among these groups and help us talk about these solutions. The co-chairs of the Pico Neighborhood Association, Maria Loya and Wes Thompson, and co-chairs of the Sunset Park neighborhood association Zina Josephs and Tom Cleys. Other members of neighborhood groups will be participating as well, and from the faith community, Janet Bregar, Father Mike, and Sandy Richards. I know there are additional representatives here from some of these organizations, so it’s very likely that two of our key Action Partners, the school district and the college, will participate in all of the groups.
In addition to the Action Partners, all of us here will have the opportunity to make a commitment to action before leaving today, and I want every single person to do this by filling out the action card in your packet. This is… When you say to me, “What can I do?” the answer is, “You tell us.” Because you’re going to know by the end of this morning what you can do, and I want you to write it down and tell us what you are going to do. It’s the kind of pledge drive you can afford. This is about action.
So whatever your gifts, whatever your talents and skills, there are opportunities later in the program to contribute, play a role in our effort to stop gang violence. And we’ll talk about this at the end in the next steps for all on the agenda. So here’s how the breakout groups are going to work. In your group, you’re going to be charged with coming together, brainstorming, and writing about two or three realistic strategies for stemming gang violence with a particular focus on Pico neighborhood, where most of gang violence takes place in Santa Monica, but not the sole focus because everyone has to participate in the solution.
We’re going to break into groups shortly, groups are going to meet until 11:20, then we’re going to take a break while the group facilitators come together, put together what you’ve all come up with, and come back together at 11:40 sharp. So when you’ve finished with your group at 11:20, we’ll have a break, food of course is always going to be available, come back here at 11:40 sharp to hear the report on the outcomes briefly, and the action steps. Then we’re going to hear from Action Partners, they’re going to identify where the gaps are, who’s taking what pieces, and where further work needs to be done. We also need to discuss reporting-back mechanisms, so we all stay in touch with the action plan – it’s not going to end today. So if you have any questions or needs, please ask the City staff who are here to serve you. Staff members are wearing city ID tags. Could those staff members raise their hands so people will know if they have any questions? One here, one there, a couple over on that side. If you have any questions, you can also come up to the front and ask us, we’ll try to figure it out.
When you registered this morning, you selected one of three working group areas, Bring It Home, Make It Work, or Keep It Safe. The colors of the packets correspond to the different work group areas, so this is how we’re going to break down each the different working groups. The blue group, people with blue packets will be in room 84. The red group, people with red packets will be in room 85. The yellow group, people with yellow packets, in room 86.
The green group, black group, and the orange group are all meeting in the cafeteria, of course in different areas so you’ll find your own group by the color of their packets. Staff and crew will help you find those rooms. On the classroom doors there are colored signs that correspond to the colors of the packets. And if you’re not sure about your room assignment or if you have questions, staff here will help you find it because I want everybody to be able to get to their breakout group. So again, wrap up the group at 11:20, back here at 11:40 sharp. And just one more thing to say, let’s have a round of applause for our Action Partners, all of them, please. And again, I’m very, very grateful. There’s not a lot of time from five minutes to 10 until 11:20, so please, give it your all, thank you very much.
[Student performances during break]
Domain Robinson: Everybody, can I have your attention? Can I have everybody’s attention, please? I just want to give thanks to the youth center, Oscar, everybody, so this is a little song about peace, and, you know, get ‘em off the street, better than gang-banging. So here we go. [performed a rap]
Alejandro Aldana: Good afternoon, good morning. I hope everybody’s doing well. And you know, I would just like to give thanks to Domane for doing all these community activities. Actually I started participating in the youth center in March and now I’m fortunate to be part of the board of directors of the youth center. I’m very grateful for all the opportunities that I’ve been given through the youth center and, you know, obviously Domane has been able to thrive in the music studio, so we’re all here. Many of the youth here are here because of the youth center. So obviously you’ve got to give thanks to all the staff and everyone who’s ever been involved in the youth center. And I’ll just get on with the poem and I’ll explain it later. Anyways, this poem is called “Sirens” and we’ll get started now. Let me just get comfortable because you know, you’ve got to be comfortable when you read stuff. Just like when you’re at your house, you’ve got to get comfortable. [read poem]
Aldana: That was written in July, so that was about nine months ago. And when I first wrote it, I never thought I would read it to a group as large as this, so I would like to say thank you for allowing me, for you know, really supporting, and obviously I would have a friend in Jesus, hopefully the rest came through. It’s about time, just learning from our mistakes in the past and growing from them, you know… it’s really making something negative into a positive and taking all the turns we make in our life and using that as the catalyst for our future. So what it means is, like, you know, just becoming an optimist and turning, like, a pile of crap into gold. You know, that’s the meaning behind it. Obviously I had to live it. I thought I would just be honest, so that’s how I feel.
[Sen. Kuehl calls everyone back together and report-outs begin. Sally and Lupe were facilitators]
Sally: All right, we’re going to start with the three [breakout] groups that we’ve done and then there will be some others coming on. My name is Sally and I was the facilitator for the fabulous blue group.
All right, so, under one of the Make It Work groups, the outcome was to have 100 at-risk youth in mentoring and activity programs and the action steps would be to form a collaboration with Probation, which would also help fund these programs. And part of the incentive would be possibly some financial incentive or others to get youth to participate in these programs. Second outcome, develop a regional plan for youth programs, and the action steps to get that done would be to create a coordinating council to develop and implement the plan, and that council should include multi-level representation. A third outcome from this group was to have Santa Monica-based businesses, including the larger media conglomerate, partner together to create jobs. Action steps would be to identify opportunities, to educate, support, and ready youth to participate in employment. And also part of their training would include financial management, job skill development, and looking at job retention issues. The fourth outcome did not have any action steps, but the outcome was to create linkages between resources existing within the community and that cultural competence be a part of all services in the community, particularly in the areas of early intervention, prevention, and relapse prevention. So that’s the Make It Work group. Anything any of the facilitators needs to add to that? Okay, all right.
This is the first Bring It Home group. One of the outcomes was to create a central hub or collaborative at Virginia Park that would coordinate services and also involve neighborhood residents in order to address issues of service access to break down barriers to access to provide the information that people need in order to get through the social service system. Part of that collaboration would include the development of a youth council or youth commission which would have equal status with every other city commission. And that the youth council be able to give a report at every City Council meeting about their needs, issues, and activities. All right. And that also came out of the Make It Work group.
All right, another outcome from that group was to address reentry issues, not only for people coming out of incarceration but also for kids who’ve been expelled from school, to get them reintegrated into the community. There is a day school that was approved, so the action steps would be to get the school open by September, identify a site. A third outcome would be peer mentoring for incarcerated youth. Action steps would be to identify community members, including those who were formerly incarcerated that are now integrated and doing well in the communities to go back into those facilities and we get to mentor youth while they’re still in programs to help prepare them to be more successful when they get out to reenter their community. Yea.
All right, and then the final one is to develop culturally competent youth and community leaders and one of the ways that we thought about doing that was have monthly events at the schools and they would have different components. Each event would include a social component – with food – information and resource-sharing, and some sort of capacity building, training or workshops that people in the community, all sectors of the community could come benefit from, and that would be coordinated in part through the central hub located in Virginia Park. Okay, so, that was for one of the Bring It Home Groups, blue group.
All right, Keep It Safe. One outcome, establish, expand, and publicize formal mechanisms for the community to dialogue with the police. And some of the action steps that came out of it would be sensitivity training, community liaisons that would model a safety commission and... inform the community. Whoever was in that group, do you want to clarify what that meant?
Woman: Yeah, let the community know what’s already available, what commissions they could become part of. The human relations commission is formerly NCCJ …..There’s a lot of things going on in the community so letting people know where they could plug in.
June: Where they can plug into existing mechanisms in order to maintain this dialogue. Okay, thank you. Okay, implement programs for restorative justice within two years, include sensitivity training for the police. I love this one – safe and looking good communities? Or good-looking communities. All right, conduct neighborhood assessments, safe walking paths, business involvements, community beautification, volunteer community cleanups, a corps to do that and a community resource center in Virginia Park that would help mechanisms for the community to give their input. Yes?
Woman: The really important part of the community input at Virginia Park community resource center is to make sure that the community is involved in planning for the programs and resources that will be at the new park.
June: All right, thank you. Is that the last one? Okay, great.
Lupe: Good afternoon everyone, my name is Lupe, and Pat and I had a group in the cafeteria, the green group that was a group of about 60 people here. We had the Bring It Home group, not Keep It safe, we had Bring It Home. And we got to two outcomes and there were a lot of some very specific action steps, we had about five pages of them, that were very comprehensive, so what I’m going to try to do is give you the themes of those action steps right here, and that the specifics will be in that final report.
So the two outcomes for Bringing It Home were increase parent-family education support, and increase youth support, counseling, and mentoring. I have to say that the groups were very sensitive about having culturally sensitive and culturally competent issues throughout, and also, although it wasn’t the highest-tickered category, reentry was also a theme they wanted to integrate throughout just so that… to honor this group’s energy. So the action steps under the first one would be, or the themes, were cultural community events as I said earlier, neighborhood-building, activism, and organizing. So the specific ideas had to do with those three themes, and consistent, comprehensive programs available at all school sites, so definitely consistency throughout. And under the second category of increasing support, counseling, and mentoring, the specific ideas that came up were to increase community awareness of resources in terms of marketing communication, and two was to increase the integration of existing programs so that again, the ideas that we have on the various flow charts are much more specific and those specific ideas will be returned to you on the report.
June: Okay, give yourselves a hand.
Sen. Kuehl: All right, thank you very much. Now, what I’m going to do is ask our Action Partners first to consider all of these action steps. And I’d like you to come up to the stage and tell me which of them you will accept responsibility for. And we’re going to check them off as you do, okay?
Nat Trives: Madam chair, Senator. Nat Trives, chair of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce. I’m very impressed by the work of the group, as I observed. We’ll take the 100 at-risk youth mentor program. I fortunately had a meeting with Big Brothers/Big Sisters USA and we are going to write a grant proposal to fund a group, we met with the press corps at Adams Middle School, and two other community members, and we will be making a plan that we will present to the city in this group about how we can make that happen over a 24-month period. And we’re very proud to have the offer from Big Brothers/Big Sisters, they are professionals at this, to get mentors tied with the young people, to work with them on some of the problems we heard in our group. So that’s one we’ll take… You want me to just go? Okay.
With respect to the linkages that are required, we have a wonderful network in the community, and I talked to Kathy Dodson at SMCC, the Santa Monica chamber, we’re gonna have a job fair, and we’re going to make sure if you’re registered at this event and you’re interested in employment in this fine community and you’re not employed, you’re going to have an opportunity. So if there’s some way we can get the list, Madam Chair, of the registrants who might need this, we will make sure that they’re invited to this particular job fair. Santa Monica is a community that probably is one of the most exciting places around to work, but they don’t know of our problem because they’re not reading our papers, they’re not in our communities and we’re going to make sure they know about our problem because we’re going to take our message to them. That’s two things we’re going to do.
Sen. Kuehl: Thank you very much. John? Superintendent of our school district.
John Deasy: Good morning, thank you very much. I guess first of all, the public schools will be supporting all the various pieces that are identified, even though we may not identify a lead on one of them, we will be supporting those. So very specifically, the community day school, a school that has been in the works, approved by the board of education, the staff proposed this school. Whenever you open a new type of school, you need to have the state approve that, and the state actually has approved the concept, and it has what is called a state ID number. So it’s a school program that is designed specifically to work with reentry of youth who have either been incarcerated, are exited out of the school system for serious violations but we don’t want to lose them, we want to have them back and help them reenter. So that school, at the moment, our action step is to identify a site, either working with business, liaison with the city, or other community partners for a site to open our school, and our goal is in September. So we will obviously take a direct lead on that piece, and of course it has an educational component, a therapeutic component, and an engagement component, so that’s a very significant piece that we’re proud to work on.
The other pieces – a portion of this notion of partnering around working and supporting the youth and potential job work, we’re going to be working with a program and proposing to our school community a program shortly that is very much modeled on a national program that’s called Value of Youth at Work, with students in [indecipherable] relationships with younger youth as a paid proactive piece with strong links to the community. And so that piece, we’ll be proud to take a lead in that as well.
The whole work of community engagement is currently being examined in the school district. We just had an analysis of our community engagement piece around what we call our community liaisons. There were some very important points made to both expand and to strengthen that program, so we will be responsible for taking the lead around this notion of community engagement and how we can do a better job around that. And what was made clear to us, a more comprehensive job K-12.
A piece that came up strongly that I don’t want to lose that I want to comment on is when we talked about people having access to all of the supports. The school district needs to and is committed to doing a better job around working with our employees and the people we work with around the notion of bias and barriers to engagement. How we help people be comfortable in accessing these core services, how we help people gain urgency in telling us what services they’re not getting and how we’re making sure we are not a barrier with our requirements, with racism in terms of issues around access to these people and these… for folks to gain access to the various supports. So that’s what these professional development we take very seriously and we look forward to doing that as well.
And lastly the whole notion of inter-agency accountability so that we work with as many agencies as possible. And we will continue working at that. Thank you.
Sen. Kuehl: Chief Butts and Ms. McCarthy.
Police Chief Jim Butts: First of all, I want to give my appreciation for everyone who’s turned out both at the first workshop and to the second one. It’s always good when people dialogue and gain a more holistic understanding of the different viewpoints. As far as the department’s commitments, to talk about sensitivity training, we are definitely committed to making sure we have a sensitive and diverse work force. In fact, did you know we’re the first police department to send every employee to the Museum of Tolerance for their sensitivity and cultural diversity program there? And we also sent all our personnel back to their updated course a few years ago, so that’s a big important piece to have a work force that understand the issues particularly related to diversity.
I want to tell you a few things about the department as well as its composition. The composition of the police department is 52% male white or female white and it’s 48% blacks, Latinos, and other minorities. Our sworn and civilian composition is even more balanced, we’re 44% male white or female white and 56% minority. That’s a big evolution over the years and it’s a tribute to equal access and equal opportunity. And you should be very proud of yourselves as a community for having developed a department like that. So these are very important issues, we’re committed to ongoing sensitivity training in the course of our actions. As it relates to the second one, community liaisons, I think if you look at Santa Monica, I don’t think there would be anyone that didn’t go to one meeting at some time where there was a police officer there…
[break in tape]
City Manager Susan McCarthy: …we will try to help coordinate with the neighborhood organizations. When we do an annual survey on satisfaction we ask a question now, “Do you feel safe in your community during the day and at night?” We actually get a gauge on and measure that. We don’t ask is your community as clean as the rest of the city, and that’s something that we’ll try to make an impact on, but it involves every single one of the people living in the community, and so we hope that PNA and others will be partner with us in that area. Also, under the first set of action steps, informing the community, someone made the point that there are lots of forums in which people can connect to their police force and many people don’t understand how many of them there are or where they are. And so we will make an effort through the public information arms of the city and working again with neighborhood groups to make sure that you know where you can connect with your police force because they are there for you. What Jim didn’t say was that part of the mission statement of the police force that he and his officers developed is, the police and the community are one and they’re always looking for ways to make that really happen on the street. And so, be part of making that happen and we’ll help you understand all the places that you can connect in that regard.
I need to move back to Bring It Home and Make It Work, and just say that the city, as it has in regard to this meeting, will try to take a coordinative role to make something happen like increasing the linkage between resources here under Making It Work, because one of the things that we can try to do is reach out to the other governmental agencies and the folks within the community who can actually bring something to bear to a problem. And we’ll try to be thinking in those coordinative terms in terms of whether those services are focused on some of the aspects and kinds of action that are in the Bringing it Home response. So from the city standpoint overall, we’re going to work on increasing the visibility and your access to your police department and we are going to try to take a coordinative role in bringing some of the parties together to make sure the right things happen here.
Sen. Kuehl: Thanks. Nat, did you want to add something?
Nat Trives: The city manager brought up something that I think I should echo. We would like to think this town has no boundaries. I mean, we have five zip codes, but I’m going to go with what I just heard, “The police and the community are one.” I’m going to take it back to the business community and say, the community and the business community have to be one in order to make this place work. We can’t survive on public dollars alone. This town is worth $17 billion in collect assessment, and if they can’t give us the money other than taxpayer money, we need to go to war with somebody…
Sen. Kuehl: Gil, want to tell us about what probation might do?
Gil Bautista: Can you hear me? Okay. All right, my name is Gil Bautista, I’m a supervisor for LA County Probation Department, Gang Unit, so I have dealt with gangs for a while. I’ve wanted to compliment everybody that’s here today for coming out on a Saturday and recognizing that there is a problem and we have a tremendous amount of solutions out here, we just have to narrow it down, focus, stay on course, and you have a more specific already... I live in the Valley and I think it’s a wonderful city. I think with a few corrective actions, community involvement, police involvement, elected officials involvement, this could be a model for a lot of other places. So I wanted to commend everybody for showing up and showing dedication to the community. You all live here, work here, have relatives here, people want to live here.
The police department… I want to thank Phil Sanchez for inviting me to come. I was at the first meeting, and at the second meeting I committed all of my resources at hand for the Probation department. Coming into the meeting, I’ve talked to people and I’ve already offered to come out and explain how to use young people to get involved in our communal justice system. It’s not the police, they make the arrest, that’s it, they make the report and go away, they go onto something else. There’s a process, there’s… court appearances, there are different kinds of probation, you can be out for six months, you can be out from the time you’re 12 to the time you’re 18. And the judge has that authority… the county becomes a parent for minors. My goal is to get as many minors back to their parents as possible. We want to help families, we want to have safe schools, and that has been the direction that the police department has gone in the last few years. And fortunately I have been associated with the gang unit and a couple other units that are really focusing on that aspect – keeping our schools safe. Providing safe and secure access to parks. We want those things to happen. So I have made the commitment to the police department to do whatever I can. I have already asked the people association that haven’t come out and explain how this thing works, give them our phone numbers, our local phone numbers, my phone number. I have a county phone number, it’s on 24-7. You call, I’ve made a lot of networking in this particular part of the city.
Sen. Kuehl: It’s not a commercial, it’s a commitment [laughter].
Gil: We want to inform parents, families, in the police department how probation actually works. You’d be surprised how many people don’t know how probation works. They make the arrest both ways, that’s it, or adults into minors. You’d be surprised how many don’t even know how that part works, once they let them go. So I’m going to do that. I already told people I would come out on my time and do it. The increase of use of counseling and mentoring, we have connections in that area, too, and I will be in contact with the local probation office here in Santa Monica to find out exactly what counseling services are there, so when I meet with residents I can give that information right there. So, if it’s there, it’s important that we know this is a long haul. We have eight steps, two meetings, two weekends. This is a long haul, it’s not going to go away next month. We need to come back. It has to be a long term commitment. I’m not going anywhere, so I’m in. Thank you.
Sen. Kuehl: Tom Donner, want to tell us what the college might do?
Tom Donner: Thank you. First of all, one of the things that has been said by everyone that I’ve listened to, is that education is part of the answer. And Santa Monica College wants to play a major role in that educational answer. So much so that what we are committing to is making that an earlier intervention. We want to be involved in the middle school, we want to be at that level of involvement. We understand that at the middle school is where a lot of the kids get their development of what they want to be or what they think they can be or where they’re going in life. So the college is only not exactly a middle school educator and we aren’t saying we’re a middle school educator, but we want to be involved with that. And that’s the role in the early intervention that we see that we can certainly play that we haven’t been doing in the past.
The other piece is how about educating the people who already been involved, the people who are currently in gangs or, better yet, the person who was in a gang. And that’s the other part that we will be deeply involved with, is how to work with other cities and I’ll call the students, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, it’s not just the youth. But there will be students, and we will work with them on how to develop their careers, how to get skills, how to develop jobs. And of course we have to thank the Santa Monica development community because our last bond issue had in there funding for a career center. Now that’s not a two-year thing, I realize we’re just talking about two-year stuff right now, but that shows the long term commitment this community had to career education and to training centers. And that training center will have a major component to it that will deal with those at-risk students.
Now, I want to congratulate the other set of students, the set of students that are able to say “I will not be a gang member.” You cannot leave those students out. You have to put those students into a type of role model so other students can follow. And we will work with those students and we will work with them every bit as much as we’re giving a helping hand to those students who are in a gang or just got out of a gang. And that’s our commitment.
Sen. Kuehl: Thank you. Janet Bregar.
Janet Bregar: I am here with two hats today. One is Interfaith Council and the other one is chair of the Human Relations Council and the council rep and we are going to participate wholeheartedly. I want to thank all of you out there for participating. Father Mike and I of the Interfaith Council have already started our action plan which has to do with number one, we are going to set up a meeting in early June, late June to bring together the youth workers and youth groups of all the interfaith groups, the community backbone, our churches, temples, synagogues, religious organizations, houses of worships – they all have strong positive youth programs. And we’re going to create a network for them speaking to each other, meeting together. It’s a really good opportunity to do the peer education that you’re talking about and a real good opportunity to get what most of our young people want to do, which is be valued for themselves and to get to know one another.
The second thing, the Human Relations Council, we’re going to include a representative of probation, we’re going to take you up on that on the council, or someone. And we’re going to continue our action step – sensitivity training. We have… we’re going to transition from the NCCJ program which was the nature of diversity and dialogue, we had a literature and arts program that emphasizes diversity, it’s taking place next week. We’re going to extend and expand that program to include more of our youth and sensitivity training, etc. And I think that we also want to be part of any kind of networking that takes place in the city. And I want to thank you very, very much for having me here today.
Sen. Kuehl: Thank you. Dick Somerfield from the Employment Development Department.
Dick Somerfield: Well, I don’t want to do an advertisement, but if it has to do with jobs, the administration of the Employment Development Department is very anxious to support your noble efforts. So if you want me to go through this list, if it has to do with jobs, education, economic development that’s kind of our purview. So we’re here to support you, today we’re listening. When you start developing your action plans, just call on us and we’ll be there to support you. Thank you.
Sen. Kuehl: Thank you. Is Larry Miranda still here? I want to call up Jann Whetstone from the building trades community.
Jann Whetstone: Hi, my name is Jann, as she said. Thank you, Senator and all the committee people who came out today to help fight this issue. I’m somewhat of a local girl, went to Venice High School, from the west side and South LA. And my role to play is I do work in labor, I represent the State Building and Construction Trades Council and we have a grant that’s funded by the California Department of Education to go into the high schools, youth groups, organizations that deal with the youth, give them a viable option of college, well-paid, high-skilled training in these apprenticeships. When kids have money in their pockets, they don’t have time to hang out with these kids. With union apprenticeships, they don’t have time to hang out after work or not go to work. And when they get increases in their pay every six months and it leads to $28 an hour or more, $60,000 $100,000 a year, they don’t have time to hang out on the street.
Like I said, I am a graduate of Venice High School, I was a single teenage mother, have been on welfare, been on section 8, worked my way up, went through the electricians apprenticeship I’m now a journeyman electrician, that’s how I got into the State Building Trades. But we need to come out to your churches, to your schools, to your youth organizations. The only thing I need to do is to get in front of these students. And I need everybody’s help – teachers, counselors, administrators, therapists, superintendents, pastors, everybody and anybody that deals with these youth. If you could just put us in front of them, we have peer groups, we have mentors in the apprentice program, and while they’re in apprenticeship they’re working on a skill level direct person, that is their mentor, they teach them. You know, these people are very highly skilled, they’re very intelligent, they know their math, they know their science, they are motivating these kids to get into that.
And one of the best motivators is to put money in their pockets. That’s what it all boils down to, getting them excited. When they see with these big trucks with these rims like these rappers and these W’s, that’s what they want. But they can’t get it working at Jack in the Box and you know, not at cosmetology school . And for the young ladies, also, they don’t have to be dirty or unfeminine. They can go to work in these careers and be self-sufficient, be independent. They want to work with the foster care programs. So our action plan is to definitely give them an option to college because a lot of these apprenticeships do also offer college credit. For the school that’s free, the training is free, the books are free, it’s paid for by the contractor, the employers, and the j ___. Money’s taken out of everybody’s checks to go towards this funding, so these students don’t have to pay for it, the only thing we need to do is motivate them, is get them to graduate from high school, work, get their GED, and to be able to pass these entry exams for some of these apprenticeships. They’re looking for work. There’s $36 billion in California that’s going toward school construction, $16 billion in LA Unified alone. Local hires. Get these kids, put them to work, get them trained, and let them build the city.
Sen. Kuehl: Is there another organization that wants to take a part of the action plan that hasn’t been taken yet? Come on down.
Maria Loya: Thank you. Zina and I are here with the Pico Neighborhood Association and the Friends of Sunset Park. First of all, I want to thank the city as well as Sen. Sheila Kuehl and the school district and all other elected officials, the police department for coming together and putting this great event in order to build a community solution. One of the things that we want to commit is, because we feel that in order for this to be successful and long-lasting, we need to ensure that there’s community buy-in, and we need participation and engagement. And so one of the things that we want to commit is to make sure that the community, our residents both in Pico neighborhood and Sunset Park are engaged and involved in the actions. There’s a lot of areas that came out in terms of engaging, informing people of existing services. Another part of community buy-in and community participation is getting community to be part of the process. And one of the things that we’re doing right now is we’re going to have a community meeting on April the 23rd. We’re going to have our residents there to talk about everything that we’ve been doing to really get community buy-in. And this is going to be April 23 at Edison Elementary from 10 to 12, so I invite every one of you to participate. I invite the business community, I invite elected officials, the city, and the police.
Another part that we want to commit to is making sure that this police and community dialogue happens. We want to work with the city, we want to work with the police to improve community relations. Another area that we want to commit to is the jobs program. We commit to working with the business community. We commit to working with the trades to make sure that the residents have access to the information of all of these services and programs that other state holders have committed to. We also commit to participating in the reentry program or transitional program with the schools and with the city to sure that our residents are involved in that, not only the parents but also the youth and that they’re involved in that area.
Zina Joseph: And I just wanted to welcome you all to Sunset Park which is where you are sitting. We had four areas that we thought we could help. One area is communication, getting the word out to our members and all their residents of our neighborhoods regarding events, or needs, warnings, opportunities for advocacy via emails, fliers, and newsletters. The second one was working with other neighborhood groups, both through the neighborhood council which is meeting at this moment, and specifically Pico Neighborhood Association. And with the Santa Monica police department to better understand the neighborhood-centered policing system. Number three is to partner with other organization and encouraging our residents to volunteer as mentors or on programs such as Days on the Job. And we think these programs should start with children as young as 8 or 9 before they start going through the difficult transition into middle school. And in the area of referrals, we commit to finding out what resources are available to our community members so that when they ask or when they express difficulties we know where to send them. It was quite inspiring today sitting in my group to hear what services are available and I’ve learned a lot attending these two workshops and I very much appreciate the city and Sen. Kuehl sponsoring and organizing it. We appreciate it.
Sen. Kuehl: Thank you very much. We’ve gone a little over our time, so I want to say what I will commit to do. And also I wanted to ask some of our Action Partners to take on a couple of things that weren’t covered. I also want here to focus on things that may not be covered. Nat, there was one here about business involvement and community beautification. And I want to see if you would be willing to ask some of your members to look at that. Susan, the Virginia Park was mentioned by two different groups as a place they wanted to centralize these programs and… you know, like a doorway. All right. And Susan said it was always envisioned that way, but I want to task the city to make certain that that reflects that need.
From my point of view, I’ve done work with the CYA, I’m on the select committee on the corrections system and we already work with them, but I want have them focus many of the efforts that they’re going to look at in Santa Monica as well, trying to see how that’s going to work. Of course we’re working on major reorganization of corrections and the bill’s coming up for Monday and we’ll continue to work on that, The second thing is, we need a report back on this, and I’m going to volunteer my office, specifically Laurie and Hilda and Oscar. And I wanted to ask every one of the Action Partners to report back to me by Sept. 1 on the progress that they’re making on these issues. And we will then partner with the city to get information out to everyone. Hilda’s smiling, so I guess it’s okay. But I think there needs to be a central place. Oversight is what the legislature’s supposed to do, so I’m going to offer some oversight so that we make sure that these things start going. I’m sure everyone will be doing it but we need to kind of know. And then the city will get it out through their website, through their communal list and we’ll do the same through ours. So that’s two things we will do. I think the rest is up to you. Inside your packets there’s a green card. I want you to be an Action Partner as well. Figure out how you can contribute to any of these action steps in our area. You might want to volunteer at a youth or employment agency, you might want to provide training in a particular targeted area. You might not even be sure exactly what you’re going to do at this moment, you might want to visit some of the booths outside where they have signup opportunities for you. But don’t miss the chance to be part of this. I want to say this to all of the members of the community, and I say this as well to the young people who are here, this is about you as well and I want you to be engaged in your neighborhood in the work. When you’re done filling out the card, give them to the volunteers at the door.
I just want to thank you all for being around a little too long. But the mayor’s going to close, so don’t worry, always the opening and the closing. I’m thrilled. I think nothing happens unless the community engages together and you’ve done it. We’re going to follow up on all of this, I’m going to ask for those reports and get them back to you. We’ll probably do this again, maybe in as short a time as six months we’ll report back, but we’ll have to see how the first report comes back Sept 1. But I guarantee we’re going to do this again because we get such energy from each other. So thank you and here’s Pam.
Mayor O’Connor: What a way to close. And thank you all. It’s a real testament that on this beautiful, glorious Saturday, how many of you are still here today, taking your time, making your commitment. So I’m going to congratulate you all for that, your hard work today. And I want to thank again all the workshop partners and Senator Sheila Kuehl. But I wanted to take a moment right now because we really need to acknowledge all the folks who have worked. They worked on Friday nights, they worked on Saturday mornings, the city staff who have been here, and they worked their normal hours but also to make sure so when you came here everything was ready to go. So a big round of applause.
And I mean, it’s great, we have the partners, we have our traditional partners, we’re going to have the continued involvement. But it is right here, it is right here at home in Santa Monica. This is where everything is going to happen. So have we looked at the long haul? The key is personal involvement, furthering the efforts. Sen. Kuehl told you about the green card. I see our poet has that green card ready to turn in. So you’re going to turn them in today. But again, it’s personal involvement that’s going to make the difference. And we’re going to try to build that network, build that communication, but it’s a two-way street. If you haven’t heard, send an email, pick up the phone, pay attention to your community organization. You think they’re dragging their feet say, hey, where is it at? Keep moving it forward. So that combination of city institutions, the community partners working, as well as all of you talking to your neighbors and holding everyone’s feet to the fire and being in for the long haul is what’s going to make the difference.
Also I want to point out the network and just point out folks, there are connections. Paul Rosenstein, Paul was a former mayor, former city councilman. Paul connected us with the Building Trades. He had that idea, he picked up the phone. You have those idea, you pick up the phone, you send an email, let’s build that network. Okay, everybody, have a wonderful day and we’ll see you again and keep working.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
This page was last modified on 10/25/2006