Pacoima Left Off List for Youth Grants

A decision to omit Pacoima from a $12-million federal youth job program that covers East Los Angeles and Watts has sparked protests from San Fernando Valley political leaders.

City Councilman Alex Padilla, whose district includes Pacoima, said Friday he has demanded a meeting with city officials. State Sen. Richard Alarcon and Assemblyman Tony Cardenas, both Democrats from Sylmar, said omitting Pacoima is unacceptable.

“The needs of the youth in Pacoima are certainly as great as any part of the city,” Alarcon said. “That’s why Pacoima was included in the empowerment zone in the first place.”

Offered by the U.S. Department of Labor, the Youth Opportunities Grants serve out-of-school youths between the ages of 14 and 21. The grant is $12 million the first year, and could provide up to $48 million over five years. The grants fund programs that help youths stay in school. They also offer job training and encourage businesses to both hire young people from low-income communities and invest in youth programs.

Nationwide, 25 grants will be made, said Diana Nave, who is helping prepare the application for the city of Los Angeles, due Sept. 30. She estimated California will receive two or three grants. The city is competing against Long Beach, Santa Ana, Oakland and other areas with high youth poverty rates.

Padilla has demanded a meeting with Nave and others in the Community Development Department to get an explanation for the exclusion of Pacoima.

Padilla said city officials have told him the new grant is targeted not just at empowerment zone areas, such as Pacoima, but to areas that have an existing, specific youth opportunity program, which Pacoima does not have.

Grant areas must have a population of 70,000 people, Nave said.

Nave said she is not sure whether Pacoima is eligible. The city has not asked the Department of Labor because the agency has settled on the area of 70,000 people in Watts and East Los Angeles.

Chris Modrzejewski, an assistant deputy mayor, said his understanding is that Pacoima is technically eligible, but would not be as competitive because it has lower poverty and drop-out rates.

Mayor Richard Riordan, Modrzejewski said, asked whether Pacoima could be included, but Modrzejewski said the agency has recommended against it, saying it would make the city’s application less competitive.

Including Pacoima “would jeopardize the grant,” Nave said.

Nave said the grant specifies that communities should be contiguous. Watts and the Eastside, an area that includes Boyle Heights, are close enough geographically and are further linked because the communities would share resources, Nave said.

But Pacoima is just “too far to make a logical connection,” Nave said.

Bill Allen, president of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, blamed the exclusion of Pacoima on City Hall politics. After researching the issue himself, Allen said he believes Pacoima is eligible.

Initially, the application being drafted by the Community Development Department only included the Watts portion of Los Angeles’ federal empowerment zone, but it was extended by a last-minute motion from Eastside Councilman Mike Hernandez to also include part of East Los Angeles.

Hernandez is chairman of the council’s Community and Economic Development Committee, which oversees such grant applications.

Allen said any expansion should have included Pacoima.

“These kids have needs and they always get left out of these kinds of grants,” Allen said.

Calling it a continuing problem in L.A., Allen said the city routinely assumes all of the “urban need” is in South-Central and East L.A.

“They forget that there are some very significant challenges for the youth of the northeast Valley,” he said.

Allen also said backers of the secession movement can use the grant program to press its case that the Valley would fare better alone.

“If we were our own city, wouldn’t we get our own [$12 million]?” he asked. “L.A. needs to come up with an answer to that question.”

Cardenas urged city officials to amend the grant application.

“They certainly should amend the application,” Cardenas said. “When it comes to getting youth opportunities, the Valley has had to scream a little harder because people just think [the greatest need] is in South-Central.”

Karen Robinson-Jacobs contributed to this story.