targetjasperjohns With police numbers falling, replacements deemed unaffordable and bullets flying in his district, Long Beach City Council member Robert Garcia—Mayor Bob Foster’s choice to chair the Public Safety Committee—has come up with a proposal for dealing with the city’s violence: make City Manager Pat West solve the problem … and fast.

Garcia and three colleagues—Patrick O’Donnell (4th district), Dee Andrews (6th district) and Steve Neal (9th district)—will present their suggestion at tonight’s council meeting, in item No. 13 on the agenda. It reads: “Recommendation to request City Manager to draft a comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan and report back to City Council for approval
within 90 days.”

According to an attached letter prepared by Garcia’s office, the motivation for the proposal—and the hurry—is the opportunity to go after federal funds.

“The National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention was created in 2010 by the Obama Administration to assist cities in preventing and addressing youth violence. Cities with a comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan are eligible to receive grants from the Federal Government to help these localities,” says a key paragraph of the letter.

Garcia’s proposal has caught many people by surprise, including Dr. Lydia Hollie, who has been at the center of Long Beach’s response to youth violence since 1996. Hollie’s work with two community-police collaborations (Youth and Gang Violence Prevention Task Force and Gang Reduction, Intervention and Prevention Project (LBGRIP Project) has coincided with federal and state grants totaling $1.4 million since 2003 and statistically significant drops in violent crime.

“I got an e-mail on Friday, actually—that’s how I learned of it,” said Hollie. “What surprised me is that it doesn’t include any of the work that’s already transpired in Long Beach. On the basis of Council member Garcia’s narrative, he was either unaware of it or he ignored it.”

Hollie suggests that Garcia’s strategy is an intellectual shortcut and financially wasteful.

“We have done so many strategic plans—on early childhood education, older adults or even the city’s 2010 plan, or the 2030 generational plan,” she says. “They are living documents. These plans were funded and written for the purpose of providing guidance and direction. And they took a lot longer than 90 days to research, analyze and write.”

Garcia’s letter begins by citing the effects of violence and crime on “a community’s economic health, as well as individuals’ physical and mental health and well-being.” It cites homicide as the No. 2 cause of death for American youth and notes that 656,000 people between 10 and 24 were treated in emergency rooms for violence-related reasons in 2008.

But its ultimate objective is blatantly financial, reading: “The Violence Prevention Plan will qualify the City for significant new revenue streams to which it is not currently entitled.”

Hollie reacts to this in an offended tone.

“The statistics that were used represent real people,” she said. “Homicide rates are real people. The numbers of people arrested, injured, incarcerated—those are constituents. But they say the purpose of this proposal is to apply for federal dollars? Are you kidding me? What are they doing? These are our children.

“What if they do all this, apply for the funding—and the dollars are not forthcoming? Is the plan just put on the shelf? Is that where we put our children, too?”