Plan to Cut Anti-Gang Effort Draws a Crowd

A group of Los Angeles City Council members said Thursday it opposes Mayor Richard Riordan’s plan to cut off funding for the L.A. Bridges anti-gang program.

Before an overflow crowd of more than 300 program supporters, including San Fernando Valley gang-intervention leader William “Blinky” Rodriguez, members of a council committee blasted Riordan’s budget proposal to eliminate funding in September and craft a new anti-gang program.

A recent audit by City Controller Rick Tuttle concluded Bridges, which has cost $28 million since 1997, is so poorly operated it should be shut down and overhauled. The program, which provides after-school programs and counseling for nearly 7,000 students from 27 middle schools, needs clearer focus and should be scaled back to five to 10 schools, Tuttle said.

But council members, school principals, students and anti-gang workers said it is too early to give up on a program that has shown promise, including a 50% drop in suspensions among participating teenagers.

“To terminate a program such as this, as comprehensive as it is, and involving as many individuals, youth and their families, is almost unconscionable, particularly when it has had some positive results,” Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski said.

Members of the council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Gangs and Juvenile Justice said they are prepared to fight to restore funding while also pursuing improvements. Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the panel’s chairman, said council support for the program is so strong that he predicted there would be a two-thirds vote to override a mayoral veto, if necessary.

“Halfway through its four-year funding period, L.A. Bridges is beginning to show positive signs,” Ridley-Thomas said. “It would be a mistake to break our commitment.”

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Ramon Cortines, interim superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, said in a letter to the council that he supports Bridges and believes it provides new alternatives for at-risk young people. Cortines stopped short of opposing a cut-off of funding.

The letter was read during a three-hour hearing on the audit, which also included testimonials about the program from middle school principals and students, including student Carol Ann Lopez of Dana Middle School in San Pedro.

“If you take away the L.A. Bridges program, you are taking away something very valuable from people,” Carol said. “You are taking away hope from people.”

Rodriguez, who oversees gang-intervention at four Valley middle schools, said the audit failed to capture the good being done by the program.

“I think [the audit finding] is just a lack of understanding of what’s going on,” he said. “We breathe hope and the notion of peace in the community.”

Councilman Mike Feuer, who chairs the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, said efforts should be made to improve the program rather than adopt the mayor’s proposal to cut off funding to develop an alternative.

“I think that’s a bad approach,” Feuer said of Riordan’s proposal. “I think giving the program opportunity to improve makes sense.”

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Council members Jackie Goldberg and Mike Hernandez also said the audit is fundamentally flawed because it evaluated a program after just 1 1/2 years when experts say it needs to operate for about four years before it can be fairly judged.

That Tuttle made sweeping conclusions about Bridges so early in the program’s life “led me to have very, very serious problems with the report in its entirety,” Miscikowski said.

Goldberg said the audit findings do not jibe with her personal observation of the program in her district.

“To say categorically that taking thousands of kids in low-income and at-risk neighborhoods off the street is not gang prevention is to miss the obvious forest for the trees,” Goldberg said.