Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.latimes.misc From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: $18-Million Federal Weed and Seed Program Offered to L.A. Won't Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 07:02:32 EST Message-ID: HEADLINE: $18-Million Federal Weed and Seed Program Offered to L.A. Won't Publication Date: Sunday November 8, 1992 BYLINE: GARY PHILLIPS There they were, battleship-gray limousines with smoked windows and bulletproof tires cruising through the charnel of last spring's urban explosion. The big cars rumbled past burned-out laundries, the twisted remains of video and liquor stores, scorched mini-malls, and, interestingly, untouched motels. They came to rest and President Bush, this alien to our shores, emerged with a retinue of square-jawed types with radio receivers plugged in their ears and guns strapped to the lining of their Hart, Schaffner & Marx suit coats. Visibly shaken, the heir to the Great Communicator's throne took his tour of Los Angeles east of Century Park West. When pressed by residents and the media as to what was the Bush Administration's response to all this fire and frustration, Bush let it be known that his Weed and Seed program was just the ticket. The city will soon decide if it wants to bring this Trojan horse into South-Central, Pico-Union and Koreatown. Begun under the Department of Justice in 1991, the program, in the department's words, "is a comprehensive, community-oriented strategy that focuses on specific, distressed neighborhoods by coordinating law enforcement efforts with human service programs to meet the following objectives: human services, economic revitalization, community-based policing, and coordinated law enforcement." On the surface, that sounds enticing and in line with the aspirations of all of us who want a rational and effective response to crime, drugs and gangs. Especially when $18 million is the carrot being dangled before us here in Los Angeles for the Seed portion. But it is inside the construct, where the brigands lie in wait with their weapons, that we must look--as people did at two public hearings. At the first, on Oct. 19 at the Greater Bethany Community Church in South-Central, U.S. Atty. Terree Bowers presented the case for Weed and Seed. Essentially he proclaimed that it would not be executed in Los Angeles as it had been in other cities. Bowers, an earnest enough chap, alluded to problems with the program in other cites and assured residents there would be no large-scale law enforcement sweeps as was done in other cities. What Bowers didn't elaborate on was that service organizations granted funds under Weed and Seed must participate in a local task force coordinated by the Department of Justice. And the reports on how the money was spent are made available to Justice too. Many at the meeting, including Anthony Thigpenn, co-author of a critique of Weed and Seed published by the Urban Strategies Group--part of the Labor/Community Strategy Center which spurred these public hearings--pointed out additional troubling aspects of the program. Like the fast-tracking of offenders--usually blacks and browns--using harsher federal criminal laws; that the bulk of the money isn't really new funds but reallocation of surplus from other federal agencies; that Seattle and other cities which adopted the program are showing signs of wanting to extricate themselves from it; and that, on occasion, Weed and Seed has tried to take credit for funds awarded to substance-abuse programs that are not under its purview. After the second public meeting, this one on Oct. 21 in Pico-Union where again residents raised serious concerns, Bowers dropped the nice-guy bit and put on his gloves. Our man from Washington implied that if the City Council rejected the $1 million for the "community-based policing" Weed component, then the millions for the Seed service sector would be in jeopardy. No carrot now, huh? Just the stick. The efforts to end drug abuse, to stanch gang violence and to ensure that accountable policing cannot be held hostage to electioneering and right-wing ideology. President-elect Bill Clinton says he is for change, so now is the time for a change in the so-far failed war on drugs. Folks on the front lines have known that for a long time now; it's time for those who make policy to listen. One could argue that guns and helicopters may have their place in this war. But on my street in Mid-City, and on the streets of Watts and Compton, Boyle Heights and Pico-Union, hardware ain't the answer. It's treatment on demand, and funding those efforts that are organizing communities to change the social conditions that lead to substance abuse. It will be standing up to the liquor lobby, which defends the specialized marketing of malt liquor to young African-Americans and Latinos, and jamming up those rap artists who "slang" for those same companies in TV commercials. Another part of the solution is demanding that the current 70-to-30 ratio of seized drug profits, with the lion's share going for law enforcement, be reversed so that most of those funds go to gang intervention and anti-drug abuse work, needle-exchange programs, as well as dialogue on the aspects of legalization and/or decriminalization of pot. The $18 million the Justice Department touted may be a mirage in a desert of Bush Administration neglect--part of its shell game in establishing control over community-based organizations it has no business messing with. Weed and Seed is ethically bankrupt. The $18 million--and more--should be granted to service agencies, after-school programs and job training projects--with no strings attached in Los Angeles or anywhere else. It's our money and all our lives. And our children's lives, suspended between hell and Earth. This article is copyright 1992 The Los Angeles Times Home Edition. 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