Council Blasts Gang Agency for Going Way Over Budget

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday angrily rebuked the Community Young Gang Services program for overspending its budget by more than 50%, without council approval, to beef up gang-prevention efforts in South-Central Los Angeles. Frustrated council members then ordered an independent review of the agency’s effectiveness.

Leaders of the program had come to the council Friday asking for an extra $600,000, saying they have delayed paying their bills in order to hire extra counselors to go into South-Central neighborhoods plagued by gang problems.

Since then, agency officials said, they have been asked by City Councilman Richard Alatorre and others to also provide help in less volatile but still troubled areas. To do both, said Steve Valdivia, the agency’s director, the program overspent its $1.01-million city budget by $600,000. Without additional money, Valdivia said, the agency could be forced to lay off as many as 20 gang-prevention counselors.

Several council members criticized Valdivia for spending without permission but said they had no choice but to approve money that already had been spent.

Although Valdivia’s request for additional funds was granted, Councilman Joel Wachs called the decision to spend large sums without council approval “probably about as bad a management as I have ever heard of,” and several council members questioned whether the program is succeeding in light of worsening gang problems.

Would Like to Spend More

“A lot of us here would like to spend more than $2 million, more than $3 million, more than $10 million” to fight gangs, Wachs said, “but I don’t have any faith in an agency that spends money it doesn’t have.”

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky vowed that the agency will be heavily scrutinized in the future. Yaroslavsky said he gets “nervous when somebody doesn’t have the courage to come forward and sell their program in advance. . . . But now it comes in the form of a cocked gun.”

Valdivia said he decided in March to end gang-prevention efforts in 10 of 14 “target areas” so that he could shift most of his workers into South-Central. Because of that, three of the five gang-prevention teams in East Los Angeles and two of three teams in West Los Angeles were relocated.

The loss of services prompted Alatorre and a few other council members to ask that he restore cuts in their areas and Valdivia said the $600,000 was needed to pay for that extra assistance.

Speaking in support of Valdivia, Alatorre said he was “responding to a very gigantic problem in South-Central” while at the same time attempting to offer skeletal coverage in less active gang areas.

“What we’re talking about is investing in our human potential, and to me $600,000 is a small price to pay,” Alatorre said.

Question Its Value

But some city officials and anti-gang agencies have questioned the value of the agency.

“I do not see the net effect of what they’re doing,” Councilman Nate Holden said. “I go out to the parks, and the (city’s) parks department has to be out there every day removing the graffiti the gangs put on.”

Councilman Michael Woo said he also had “serious questions about the effectiveness of the program” and moved that an independent review of the agency be conducted.

The agency originally was created to send teams of street-wise counselors into the field to promote peace, but today the majority of staffers work in schools, counseling younger children against gangs.