Input Sought on Youth Crime Project
The City Council will hold a special meeting tonight to consider how best to use a $4.5-million grant aimed at reducing juvenile crime in south Oxnard.
Mayor Manuel Lopez said the meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. at the Boys & Girls Club, 200 E. Bard Road, will give residents in south Oxnard the opportunity to have a say in how the funds will be spent during the three-year pilot period.
“This is the only grant application of this kind from this county,” Lopez said.
The state program, which would not be implemented until October, would focus on the portion of the city south of Wooley Road because youths from the area make up a disproportionate share of offenders in the county’s corrections system, officials said.
Participants would have to acknowledge responsibility for their crimes and sign a statement identifying the community service they intend to perform as restitution.
A portion of the money would be used by the county’s Corrections Services Agency to hire additional probation officers and mental health, drug and alcohol personnel, said agency officials. The city would also use its share of the grant to hire one full-time city police officer.
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