When You Plow New Ground, Sometimes You Encounter Rocks and Stumps--
Note From Steve: Below is an article from my local hometown newspaper. Let me assure readers that police response is NOT 20 to 30 minutes. This particular sub-station, as were a couple of others around our city, was consolidated into larger quarters about a mile from the old one. This is a wonderful example of a collaborative effort to serve children and others in our community. North Little Rock competes for every single one of our children. We are blessed with a very progressive Mayor and City Council, coupled with a great group of city employees and residents. Why... in the implementation of this particular program, a church from south of the river in Little Rock has joined with us! Remember my motto: TO BEAT GANGS, WE MUST COMPETE WITH GANGS.
The NLR Times
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Some praise community center, while others worry
Though activities are welcomed, absence of police has some worried about crime on Washington Avenue.
Many of the homes along the 2200 block of East Washington Avenue are boarded up, the others display signs that read “No trespassing.”
So the name of the event held last Saturday, the “New Beginning Celebration,” was significant of the hope presented by a new city project in the area.
Nearly 100 nearby residents, church leaders and city officials gathered at the old police substation at 2216 East Washington Ave., where Mayor Pat Hays, Ward 2 Alderman Linda Robinson and others officially launched an expansion of the building now dubbed the East Washington Community Center.
But while many residents praised the center, in the days after the event others were raising concerns about whether this safe haven can survive with the police pulling out entirely.
On Saturday, neighbors and members of Park Hill Baptist Church said they came by to lend a hand to the nine-year-old center’s volunteer activities director Ray Smith and New Harvest Ministries director Pastor Sam Harris.
The duo is providing a safe learning environment for the neighborhood’s kids, said Margaret Powell, the city’s director of community relations.
“[It’s] something that many of these children don’t find at home,” Smith said.
The plan now is to refurbish the basketball court and playground outside, as well as refit the portion of the building that had been the old police quarters to allow the whole inside to be used as a community center.
That way, by summer, the place will be able to offer even more kids a place to grab a sandwich or hang out, playing basketball or watching approved videos while parents are at work, Harris said.
The center has also announced a work-related apprentice program for young people, and more tutoring this fall, Smith said.
But worries abound in this seeming paradise, and not just the sort of worries that Harris, who lives 10 blocks away and has worked at the Firm Foundation Ministries homeless shelter nearby, maintains this center is trying to tackle.
“Most people down here don’t have three meals a day; when I was growing up, we were doing good if we had one,” he said. “It’s a poverty-stricken area with a lot of drug addiction, gangs, single parents that don’t have the funds of a two-parent family.”
Alderman Robinson says she was on board with the Police Department’s decision to completely move out of the building, but her counterpart, Ward 2 Alderman Olen Thomas, who has represented the area for more than 20 years, says he has big issues with it.
“I was disgusted to find out that the police had pulled out of the substation,” he said Monday night.
“Only a few days ago a kid got shot south of the substation and crossed Washington Avenue before falling down,” Thomas offered as evidence to what he calls “an area where we need protection the most.”
Thomas says he hears complaints all the time—not about the center itself—but about the declining police presence in the East Washington area.
If someone calls, “the police show up 20 or 30 minutes later, if at all,” he said. “People are afraid.”
North Little Rock Police Chief Danny Bradley said the substation has been used “sporadically” but has seen “no significant use” in last two years. Instead, officers are using the Rose City substation approximately 10 to 15 blocks away.
“You can’t organizationally stay together and operate out of too many locations,” he said. “It was put to better use” by the community as a youth center:
Capt. Mike Davis, who heads up the city’s patrol division, acknowledges that the area around the center is “a high-crime area.”
But he says his sense is that the instigators are basically “small groups of kids with nothing to do and they get bored.” So he thinks letting the community center take over the whole building is a good idea.
“I think [Ray Smith] has got a good plan, and we’ve pledged that we [the Police Athletic League of volunteer cops who work with kids after hours] want to be involved,” said Davis. “It’s a win-win situation for us and for them.”
Not so for Randall Bradley, a nearby resident who agrees with Thomas. Right now the neighborhood’s elderly women, like his mother, are being made prisoners in their own homes, while outsiders—allegedly drug dealers from out of the area—are holding the streets hostage, he said.
Jerry McAway, who has lived in the area for 32 years, said he can sit on his front porch and watch the drug deals go down. The dealers use walkie-talkies so they can be alerted when the police are on their way, he said. He’s too old to start over in a new neighborhood, he said, so for now, instead of the police, he depends on his own guns for protection.
“The only way they’re going to get rid of me is to carry me out,” he said.
Sgt. Terry Kuykendall, the police department’s spokesman, said the drug problem in not only around East Washington.
“I don’t think the drug problem in that area is significantly different from other areas of the city,” Kuykendall said. “Drugs are a problem everywhere; there are no boundaries.”
But Thomas said he and a few neighborhood residents plan to voice their concerns at the North Little Rock City Council meeting Monday night.
Told of Thomas’ plan, Robinson agreed that the area needs more police presence.
“I’m well aware that drugs are a problem because I’ve driven through there at night and noticed a lot of traffic and people standing on the street,” she said.
She has even fielded some complaints from residents, she said, and left messages about the problem with Davis’ administrative assistant. But that doesn’t change her mind about expanding the center.
“I support it 100 percent,” she said.
For his part, Harris said Davis is right: It’s not so much gangs plaguing the area as small groups of black teenagers forming alliances.
“They form cliques over a five- or a six-block area and there’s trouble if someone infringes on a group’s territory. When you grow up in that type of environment, that’s what is normal. That’s what we’re up against,” he said.
So his hope is that by supporting these teenagers and trying to fill in some gaps, they won’t want to turn to drugs or gangs.
For 15-year-old Demerus Williams and 16-year-old Brandon Rogers, the center, with its ball games and computers, offers an alternative.
“There’s always stuff to do there when there’s nothing to do at home,” Williams said.
The NLR Times
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Some praise community center, while others worry
Though activities are welcomed, absence of police has some worried about crime on Washington Avenue.
Many of the homes along the 2200 block of East Washington Avenue are boarded up, the others display signs that read “No trespassing.”
So the name of the event held last Saturday, the “New Beginning Celebration,” was significant of the hope presented by a new city project in the area.
Nearly 100 nearby residents, church leaders and city officials gathered at the old police substation at 2216 East Washington Ave., where Mayor Pat Hays, Ward 2 Alderman Linda Robinson and others officially launched an expansion of the building now dubbed the East Washington Community Center.
But while many residents praised the center, in the days after the event others were raising concerns about whether this safe haven can survive with the police pulling out entirely.
On Saturday, neighbors and members of Park Hill Baptist Church said they came by to lend a hand to the nine-year-old center’s volunteer activities director Ray Smith and New Harvest Ministries director Pastor Sam Harris.
The duo is providing a safe learning environment for the neighborhood’s kids, said Margaret Powell, the city’s director of community relations.
“[It’s] something that many of these children don’t find at home,” Smith said.
The plan now is to refurbish the basketball court and playground outside, as well as refit the portion of the building that had been the old police quarters to allow the whole inside to be used as a community center.
That way, by summer, the place will be able to offer even more kids a place to grab a sandwich or hang out, playing basketball or watching approved videos while parents are at work, Harris said.
The center has also announced a work-related apprentice program for young people, and more tutoring this fall, Smith said.
But worries abound in this seeming paradise, and not just the sort of worries that Harris, who lives 10 blocks away and has worked at the Firm Foundation Ministries homeless shelter nearby, maintains this center is trying to tackle.
“Most people down here don’t have three meals a day; when I was growing up, we were doing good if we had one,” he said. “It’s a poverty-stricken area with a lot of drug addiction, gangs, single parents that don’t have the funds of a two-parent family.”
Alderman Robinson says she was on board with the Police Department’s decision to completely move out of the building, but her counterpart, Ward 2 Alderman Olen Thomas, who has represented the area for more than 20 years, says he has big issues with it.
“I was disgusted to find out that the police had pulled out of the substation,” he said Monday night.
“Only a few days ago a kid got shot south of the substation and crossed Washington Avenue before falling down,” Thomas offered as evidence to what he calls “an area where we need protection the most.”
Thomas says he hears complaints all the time—not about the center itself—but about the declining police presence in the East Washington area.
If someone calls, “the police show up 20 or 30 minutes later, if at all,” he said. “People are afraid.”
North Little Rock Police Chief Danny Bradley said the substation has been used “sporadically” but has seen “no significant use” in last two years. Instead, officers are using the Rose City substation approximately 10 to 15 blocks away.
“You can’t organizationally stay together and operate out of too many locations,” he said. “It was put to better use” by the community as a youth center:
Capt. Mike Davis, who heads up the city’s patrol division, acknowledges that the area around the center is “a high-crime area.”
But he says his sense is that the instigators are basically “small groups of kids with nothing to do and they get bored.” So he thinks letting the community center take over the whole building is a good idea.
“I think [Ray Smith] has got a good plan, and we’ve pledged that we [the Police Athletic League of volunteer cops who work with kids after hours] want to be involved,” said Davis. “It’s a win-win situation for us and for them.”
Not so for Randall Bradley, a nearby resident who agrees with Thomas. Right now the neighborhood’s elderly women, like his mother, are being made prisoners in their own homes, while outsiders—allegedly drug dealers from out of the area—are holding the streets hostage, he said.
Jerry McAway, who has lived in the area for 32 years, said he can sit on his front porch and watch the drug deals go down. The dealers use walkie-talkies so they can be alerted when the police are on their way, he said. He’s too old to start over in a new neighborhood, he said, so for now, instead of the police, he depends on his own guns for protection.
“The only way they’re going to get rid of me is to carry me out,” he said.
Sgt. Terry Kuykendall, the police department’s spokesman, said the drug problem in not only around East Washington.
“I don’t think the drug problem in that area is significantly different from other areas of the city,” Kuykendall said. “Drugs are a problem everywhere; there are no boundaries.”
But Thomas said he and a few neighborhood residents plan to voice their concerns at the North Little Rock City Council meeting Monday night.
Told of Thomas’ plan, Robinson agreed that the area needs more police presence.
“I’m well aware that drugs are a problem because I’ve driven through there at night and noticed a lot of traffic and people standing on the street,” she said.
She has even fielded some complaints from residents, she said, and left messages about the problem with Davis’ administrative assistant. But that doesn’t change her mind about expanding the center.
“I support it 100 percent,” she said.
For his part, Harris said Davis is right: It’s not so much gangs plaguing the area as small groups of black teenagers forming alliances.
“They form cliques over a five- or a six-block area and there’s trouble if someone infringes on a group’s territory. When you grow up in that type of environment, that’s what is normal. That’s what we’re up against,” he said.
So his hope is that by supporting these teenagers and trying to fill in some gaps, they won’t want to turn to drugs or gangs.
For 15-year-old Demerus Williams and 16-year-old Brandon Rogers, the center, with its ball games and computers, offers an alternative.
“There’s always stuff to do there when there’s nothing to do at home,” Williams said.
posted by Steve Nawojczyk at 3:20 PM
1 Comments:
Don't wait till it's too late.
MOST wise words are the simplest, please listen to these wise words America.
Stacey Goodwin
Parent
http://thewarningsigns.blogspot.com
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