Anti-Crime Effort to Be Routed Through Recreation Areas

Short-handed and strapped for cash, the manager of the Ramona Gardens recreation center turned to a most unlikely source to rid his aging Boyle Heights facility of graffiti: gang members.

The gang members agreed to help, using donated paint from an adjacent housing project to cover scrawls in the restrooms, weight room and entryway.

The gang members even posted signs, warning that anyone who vandalized the center would suffer their wrath.

“If I had put up a sign, there would still be graffiti,” park manager Hector Salazar said with a grin. “But when these guys do it, people listen.”

Salazar’s tactic is an example of the extra efforts and ingenuity that park directors around Los Angeles are using to protect their facilities.

But now, Ramona Gardens and 35 other city parks and recreation centers, including seven in the San Fernando Valley, will receive some extra help in an anti-crime program proposed last week by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

Riordan’s initiative will include $8.8 million for parks to add equipment and staff without having to rely on donations and volunteers--including gang members.

The mayor also proposed spending $5.2 million to eliminate such signs of urban blight as illegal dumping, abandoned cars and buildings, and broken sidewalks.

The parks were selected for the program based, in part, on the population density and crime in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Riordan, a former recreation and parks commissioner, launched the program in response to a recent 9% spike in violent crime in the first seven months of the year, compared with last year. The most disturbing trend is a 116% increase in gang homicides from the same period last year.

The anti-crime program focuses on youth activities, because nearly 70% of the suspects in homicides committed over the last seven months were between the ages of 13 and 24, police said.

Valley Turnaround Was Inspiration

The effort was partly inspired by a successful restoration program launched in a Valley park after a gang shooting in July.

An 18-year-old man was killed and another young man critically wounded when gang members sprayed a carload of people with gunfire in the Sepulveda Recreation Center parking lot in Panorama City.

After the attack, park crews improved lighting, trimmed overgrown trees and shrubs, removed a pay phone used for drug sales and replaced exercise equipment used by gang members with a play area for toddlers. Police also increased park patrols.

Kevin Regan, superintendent of park operations in the Valley, said the response was almost instantaneous.

“The next day, families and children were back in the park,” he said, adding that turnout has been so good that park officials have started a flag football program for the first time in years.

Most of the 36 parks in the program are in the poorest sections of the city, primarily in the northeast Valley and in South and East Los Angeles. Many are hangouts for gangs. Litter, graffiti and aging equipment are common problems. Basketball nets are torn or missing from the outdoor rims. Huge patches of soccer fields are often worn to bare dirt from overuse.

Recreation officials say the facilities with the most dire need are Hubert Humphrey Memorial Park in Pacoima, Delano Park in Van Nuys, Harvard Recreation Center in South Los Angeles, Ramona Gardens Recreation Center in Boyle Heights, Elysian Valley Recreation Center near Dodger Stadium and Normandale Recreation Center in the Harbor-Gateway area.

Hubert Humphrey Park is at the center of an area that has long been plagued by violence and gang activity. Parents even clamored to close the 9 1/2-acre park in 1997 after an 18-year-old football player was shot to death.

The baseball fields and the community center look worn. Graffiti has been a problem for years.

“Most of the kids in this area can’t afford to attend the programs, so we could use the money for that,” recreation assistant Johnny Padron said. “If they’re here playing basketball, baseball and softball, they’ll stay out of trouble.”

At Harvard Recreation Center, the swimming pool is empty. It sprang a leak in August while city crews were paving an adjacent alleyway.

“If this had happened in the Valley or somewhere else, they would have fixed our pool by now,” complained recreation assistant Andre Green.

The 12.7-acre park at 62nd Street and Harvard Boulevard is home to the city’s only midnight basketball league--a weekly program that often pits teams of rival gang members against each other.

With the new funding, the league will be expanded to the Valley and Eastside.

Park users said improved lighting and additional after-school programs may bring families back.

“It’s a decent park,” said Reuben Navarro, who accompanies his three children there at least three times a week. “The only problem is that gangs take it over at night.”

Lois Thomas, a longtime South Los Angeles resident who was at the park recently watching her grandson practice flag football, said she would like to see an after-school tutoring program.

“That would be especially helpful because many parents work late and can’t watch their kids after school,” she said.

Field Trips on a Long Wish List

Besides funding to repair the pool, park director Robert Jones said he could use some money to repair termite damage in the gymnasium and improve drainage on the soccer fields.

But most of all, Jones said he would like to add to his crew of two full-time assistants so he could offer field trips to museums and other cultural facilities.

“A lot of these kids don’t ever cross Crenshaw Boulevard,” he said.

Elysian Valley Recreation Center is a 1.9-acre facility in a heavily Latino neighborhood between the Los Angeles River and the Golden State Freeway, just north of Dodger Stadium.

Facility director Billie Carey said she would like computers, a television and furniture so she could offer teens a place to hang out after school.

“If we can provide a place that they can call their own, that would help,” she said.

At the Ramona Gardens housing project, the recreation center is the hub of activity for the 1,500 residents. The center includes a 1.9-acre park with a baseball diamond.

On a recent afternoon, gang members played basketball at one end of the gym while school children worked on homework at the other end.

Athletic equipment is always in short supply, so Salazar often relies on donations or his own money. But even that is not always enough. He recently started badminton matches in the gym by stringing a volleyball net between a ladder and a basketball rim.

With additional money from Riordan’s program, Salazar said he could buy uniforms for the football, soccer and basketball teams.

“If they get a uniform, they get a sense of pride,” Salazar said.

Parents say the added funding should be used to take youngsters to museums, zoos or beaches--anywhere away from the gang influences in the projects.

“I think the kids need to be entertained and taken on trips,” said Daisy Aguila, a 10-year projects resident and the mother of two girls and a young boy. “Anything to keep them out of gangs.”

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Staff writer Irene Garcia contributed to this story.