Weed and Seed Project Assailed at L.A. Meeting : Riot aid: The federal project is denounced as potentially racist and unconstitutional by many in the crowd of 200.

A federal crime-fighting program touted as the key ingredient in riot recovery efforts was denounced as potentially racist and unconstitutional at a raucous public meeting in South-Central Los Angeles on Monday night.

An overflow crowd of more than 200 residents gathered at Bethany Community Church and voiced a chorus of objections to the Justice Department-sponsored Weed and Seed program, which President Bush has proposed for Los Angeles after last spring’s civil unrest.

The meeting was the first of two public forums scheduled by the City Council’s ad hoc recovery committee, chaired by Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, which is soliciting public reaction to the program.

“Weed and Seed is not a new concept,” resident Fred Williams told the committee. “It’s been tried in other cities and it has failed. We cannot accept anybody coming into the city who does not know anything about us trying to shove something down our throats.”

The final public hearing on the program is scheduled Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Los Angeles’ Park Plaza Hotel, 607 Park View Street. The committee is expected to make a decision on the matter Oct. 29.

As described by federal officials, Weed and Seed is a two-pronged approach designed to first “weed” out gangs and drug dealers from crime-plagued communities and then “seed” the areas with jobs and social programs, all under the coordination of a task force of community-based groups, federal and local officials.

The program has been tested on a limited basis in a few cities--including Kansas City, Newark, N.J., and Santa Ana--but it has emerged as a key piece of Bush’s urban agenda in the wake of the Los Angeles riots.

The Los Angeles City Council in July approved two areas as test sites for the program. They are a nine-square-mile section of South-Central Los Angeles, bordered by Vernon, Manchester, Western and Central avenues, and 4.5 square miles comprising the Pico-Union and Koreatown neighborhoods, bordered by 6th Street, Washington Boulevard, Western Avenue and the Harbor Freeway.

Population in the target areas tops 288,000, with a little more than a third of the residents having incomes that fall under federal poverty guidelines.

At Monday’s meeting, federal and local officials defended the program, saying it would bring in badly needed social service funds to the city, and downplayed the “weed” or law enforcement aspects of the program.

“There is a lot of misinformation being disseminated about the program,” said U.S. Atty. Terree Bowers. “I said when I agreed to head the Weed and Seed program here that it could not work the way it had worked in other cities, that we could not have large-scale law enforcement sweeps in Los Angeles, that that would be inappropriate. There is no hidden agenda here. What you see is what you are going to get.”

But the majority of speakers questioned the concept of the Weed and Seed program, and especially objected to the weed components.

“Two and a half years ago I was what the Justice Department would have labeled a weed,” said Earl Massey, who identified himself as a recovering drug addict working as a substance abuse counselor. “If the Weed and Seed program had been working then, I would now be serving time in prison and would be no use to the community at all. If Weed and Seed is allowed to happen, it will destroy the lives of thousands of young people who could have been of help to their community.”