SOUTHWEST : Group Questions Use of Rebuilding Funds

More than 100 members of a grass-roots South Los Angeles group questioned a U.S. attorney last week about how $1 million in federal community improvement funds will be spent.

Terree Bowers met with members of Action for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood Development Alternatives (AGENDA) at Mt. Tabor Baptist Church on Western Avenue to discuss Community Projects for Restoration, the locally retooled version of the federal Weed and Seed program.

The Justice Department funds were originally part of Weed and Seed, a federal community improvement program created by the Bush Administration aimed at improving inner cities through increased law enforcement and funding for local service agencies.

AGENDA organizer Adrienne Shropshire said the attendees’ biggest concern was how to involve local youths in addressing crime and safety problems, a point many believed was overlooked by Weed and Seed.

Last fall, the City Council rejected an application for Police Department participation in Weed and Seed and renamed the project after residents from the targeted areas of Pico-Union, Koreatown and South Los Angeles raised objections at public hearings.

Their concerns centered around the “weed” portion of the program, law-enforcement sweeps mandated by the Justice Department before the city could get additional funding for service agencies, the program’s “seed” component.

After renaming the project and forming a steering committee composed of nine city officials, federal funding still remained in doubt until March, when it was restored without the condition of direct federal control of monies. Bowers said about $20 million will be given to cities nationwide by the Justice Department for community improvement next year.

“The reason for the meeting was to explore alternative ways of community improvement besides repressive law-enforcement tactics controlled by the government,” said AGENDA board chairman Anthony Thigpenn. He said that Bowers discussed various proposals, including one targeting gang prevention submitted by the district attorney’s office and another aimed at curbing truancy by the county Probation Department.

Meeting attendees, however, objected to both, saying what is needed is a community-based, rather than law-enforcement-based, effort to address problems among youth.