Safety: Strategies Involved and Challenges Faced in : Combatting Violence Affecting the Pico Neighborhood

This letter is in response to your article, “Pico Residents Call for More Police in the Wake of Shootings” (March 30). I, too, have been a resident of the Pico Neighborhood for more than 15 years, attending public school in Santa Monica, church and organized youth activities. I received my first employment opportunity through the Pico Neighborhood Assn., of which I am also a member. I have also personally suffered the loss of friends and loved ones to youth violence.

I was shocked when I read the suggestions of PNA board members, Mr. Tigler and Mr. Millen, for a safe community.

Seizing residents’ personal property; evicting families and individuals; rounding up all of the alleged gang members (usually implying the indiscriminate arrest of young Latino and African-American men between the ages of 15-24 wearing a certain style of clothing) is more a formula for mass hysteria than one which would facilitate the recovery of the Pico Neighborhood in the wake of this violence.

I agree that community public safety is of great importance to Pico Neighborhood residents. Affordable, decent, habitable housing and youth activities and employment are also among the highest concerns for my neighbors and me. I challenge the Pico Neighborhood Assn. Board of Directors to hold a public meeting so that they can see and hear what’s on the agenda of important issues of the community they were elected to represent.

I’d like them to hear what the neighborhood priorities actually are and what steps should be taken to reach our common goals. I challenge the PNA board to represent me.

CESAR ISSAC

Santa Monica