Taking Back the Avenue

Even here in one of the nation’s safest counties, there are places where lawless thugs force good people to live in fear. When community members stand together to take back the streets from criminal gangs, their heroic determination deserves the applause and support of the entire county.

Such is the success story in the working-class area of western Ventura called the Avenue. In today’s Ventura County edition of The Times, reporters Gina Piccalo and Tina Dirmann recount how area residents, city officials and police have worked together to rein in a gang that had terrorized the neighborhood for nearly four decades.

Since the 1960s, the Avenue has been plagued by young toughs with little to lose and the pathetic idea that manhood can be proved by reckless drinking, taking drugs and bullying the weak. Graffiti, loitering and intimidation by beatings or assaults have been all too commonplace.

In the past 10 years, police have attributed nine homicides in the area to gang activity. The most recent--the slaying of 18-year-old Billy Zara last September--was the last straw. The grand jury indicted seven gang members for the beating death of Zara; a 14-year-old gang member was also arrested. Witnesses said the suspects mistakenly thought Zara had called police about their loud party.

The removal of those eight people from the neighborhood apparently has chilled gang activity along the Avenue, at least for the moment. But it is merely the latest round in a community-wide effort to clean up the area in a variety of ways.

The Avenue has been on hard times since the oil industry that provided many of the neighborhood’s jobs pulled out in the late 1980s. Activists formed the Westside Community Council six years ago after a drive-by shooting left bullet holes in the windows of several neighbors. The council has encouraged area businesses to spruce up their properties, cajoled the city to improve services and won a pleasant new home for the local branch library.

In 1997, the community council persuaded city officials to pursue a three-year, $1.5-million federal grant to fund a gang suppression program. The grant funds eight officers at the Ventura Police Department, two officers from the Ventura County Probation Department, one deputy district attorney and programs at the Ventura Unified School District and the Boys & Girls Club.

The council has also taken the fight for peace directly to the streets. On weekend nights, a team of residents armed with police scanners and walkie-talkies drives around the neighborhood and looks for trouble. They don’t confront anyone; they simply call police. Sometimes, just driving by a few times is enough to disperse a group of loitering kids.

For all its progress and optimism, the Avenue is still hardly the envy of the rest of Ventura County. Not yet. But we honor the courage, unity and hard work that has brought this diverse group of neighbors so far in such a short time.

There is much that far wealthier neighborhoods could learn from the Avenue’s success at pulling together and taking positive action to resolve community problems.