Pubdate: Sat, 05 Jun 2004
Source: Asheville Citizen-Times (NC)
Copyright: 2004 Asheville Citizen-Times
Contact:  http://www.citizen-times.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/863
Author: Mayor Charles Worley, City Council members Terry Bellamy, Holly
Jones and Brownie Newman

NEIGHBORHOOD PARTNERSHIPS AND A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH WILL MAKE ASHEVILLE
SAFER

Recent public attention has focused on the problem of drug dealing in
our city. All members of City Council agree on the need for an
effective response to crime in all neighborhoods. The City of
Asheville currently invests more than 25 percent of its entire city
budget of more than $100 million for public safety, with more than $14
million for police protection. We would like to outline our ideas for
how we can take immediate steps to make our neighborhoods safer while
also addressing some of the root causes of the problems.

First, we need to hire additional police officers. Last year, City
Council allocated $150,000 to hire three new officers to improve
safety in Asheville's public housing neighborhoods. Asheville now has
a special unit of 10 officers who focus their work on improving safety
in public housing. We support allocating an additional $250,000 this
year to add four more officers to this unit, which will help provide a
more continuous police presence in areas of the city where crime
remains a problem.

For community policing to be effective, neighborhoods need to be
involved to work with the police. In addition to hiring new officers,
we support investments to help organize effective community watch
initiatives in neighborhoods where crime is a problem. To make sure
our strategies are effective in the long run, we also support creating
stronger incentives to retain experienced police officers with the
Asheville Police Department.

Second, we need to create job opportunities for young people. The
reality facing many kids in poor neighborhoods is that the only people
they know with disposable money are people who sell drugs. The offer
of $50 cash to simply "hold a bag" is an insidious temptation for a
young person from a low-income family. We need to support constructive
job opportunities for our young people, so they can learn the value of
work and start getting ahead in life. The first job offer that a young
person gets, regardless of what neighborhood they live in, should not
be to participate in dealing drugs.

Third, we need to make sure more of our young people graduate from
school. When kids drop out of school, their chances of getting in
trouble with the law and being incarcerated go up exponentially. For
kids from poor neighborhoods, education really is "the way out." There
are excellent efforts already under way in the community and the city
schools to reduce the minority achievement gap and dropout rate. We
are making a lot of progress. We should build on these efforts to
accelerate our success.

Finally, we must support more livable, integrated neighborhoods in
areas of concentrated poverty. In the past, local and federal housing
policies have concentrated large amounts of low-income housing in just
a few areas, some of which are now the neighborhoods most plagued by
crime. We have proven models here in Asheville of how communities can
be transformed to create more safe and attractive places for families
and children.

To drive through the West End/ Clingman Avenue neighborhood today you
would never know that it used to be a neighborhood riddled with drug
dealing, prostitution, illegal trash dumping, homeless camps,
disinvestment and speeding through the neighborhood. Today it is none
of that because local residents partnered with the Asheville Police
Department, Mountain Housing Opportunities and Haywood Road Church to
reclaim their neighborhood. They organized cleanups with the
assistance of Quality Forward, Riverlink and Buncombe County. They
walked through the neighborhood at night and knocked on the windows of
people who were committing illegal activities. They wrote down license
tag numbers and reported them to the police.

The government and police can't do the job alone. No matter how many
police officers we hire, the police can never provide a 24-hour
presence. History shows us that it when we link enhanced enforcement
with strong leadership from the neighborhoods that we achieve a
long-term positive impact on crime. We are committed to bringing more
police online as well as the resources and energy necessary to build
these critical partnerships.

We are committed to taking the kind of comprehensive approach that
will be necessary to make our neighborhoods a safe place for families
in the short term and over the long run.

By taking a comprehensive approach, and partnering with the people in
the neighborhoods, we can create the opportunity for young people to
learn the value and responsibility of work, help more kids establish a
strong foundation for life by doing well in school and make our
community a safer and better place to live.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin