Council Votes to Fund Anti-Gang Program

Defying the wishes of Mayor Richard Riordan and recommendations of City Controller Rick Tuttle, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday voted 12-0 to continue funding the controversial L.A. Bridges anti-gang initiative for one year.

“The message to be delivered, in no uncertain terms, is L.A. Bridges is about building bridges, not blowing them up,” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas.

A recent audit by Tuttle and his staff found that Bridges--which provides after-school programs and counseling to nearly 7,000 at-risk youths--is so poorly operated that it should be shut down and overhauled.

In his proposed budget released last week, Riordan recommended that the city fund the program only through September and then start a new anti-gang initiative.

But Ridley-Thomas and other council members argued that the audit was weak and relied on flawed methodology. The middle-school program, which was started in 1997 and costs the city about $10 million a year, should be given more time to work, council members said.

“Is it working perfectly? Absolutely not,” said Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who heads the Public Safety Committee. “Does it need to have some corrections? Yes. But the controller’s report doesn’t measure the intangibles that were out there. . . . We must make it better; we must make it stronger. Let’s keep the program going.”

Tuttle, nevertheless, told the council that the city would be better served by an alternative anti-gang program. He also criticized Bridges administrators for failing to keep adequate data for tracking the program’s progress over the last three years.

“I spent a considerable amount of time with my staff discussing ways to save the program,” Tuttle said. “In the end, I became convinced that the lack of reliable data point to the need to start over with a refocus and redesign.”

In his extensive audit, Tuttle also questioned whether the ambitious anti-gang initiative--which has cost taxpayers more than $28 million since 1997--has kept youths from joining gangs and committing crimes, as promised.

Tuttle noted that juvenile arrests in neighborhoods around schools targeted by the program actually have increased over the last two years.

He further alleged that the city’s Community Development Department--which administers the program--wasted money on things such as administrative costs, which he says soaked up 34% of the budget. Had the program spent only 20% of its budget on overhead, an additional $779,000 could have been used to provide services directly to participants, Tuttle concluded.

Deputy Mayor Manuel Valencia, Riordan’s spokesman, questioned the wisdom of continuing the funding for a year.

“Is anyone going to be motivated to come up with good, effective programs that keep kids away from gangs and drugs if they know the funding is going to be there for a year?” Valencia said. “It makes no sense at all.”

But council members said they will demand that program officials implement a variety of fixes by January.

“We all admit there are some flaws,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick. “We know we need gang prevention in this city. . . . We also know that we need to be responsible about it.”

The anti-gang initiative was started after the 1995 shooting of 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen, whose family made a wrong turn into a Cypress Park alley and was ambushed by gang members. The killing brought an outcry from politicians eager to address gang violence.

L.A. Bridges set out to provide an array of services to boost school attendance and to keep the city’s teens away from gangs.

On Wednesday, hundreds of parents, students and social workers turned out for the council meeting to ask officials to save the program.

Ramon Cortines, interim superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and LAPD Chief Bernard Parks also sent letters in support of Bridges.

“Clearly, within L.A. Bridges there is a need for an improved management and organizational framework, better coordination between community organizations and an effective evaluation component,” Parks wrote. “However, the city would be far better served by affording the program the ability to make those improvements and become more cost effective, rather than to discontinue an established effort whose services would require replication.”