A plan to free up $1 million, quick, for youth programs in New Haven — part of the response to the rash of violent crimes by gangs of kids — moved ahead after aldermen on opposing sides struck a compromise over lunch.
The lunch took place Thursday at Clark’s Dairy. Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez met with the man seeking to take his job away, Alderman Carl Goldfield, and with several of Goldfield’s allies. They put their political differences aside to reach consensus on moving forward a new program to give youth agencies grants to start or expand after-school programs.
The aldermen plan to use $1 million from the sale of the Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) to make the grants. The two sides disagreed over how to divide the money. Goldfield and his allies wanted it all to go directly to programs for kids.
Perez wanted established youth agencies like LEAP and Farnam Neighborhood House to get money to repair decaying facilities (like a roof and a pool). Fixing LEAP’s pool, for instance, would help give kids more to do, Perez argued.
Goldfield and his allies argued that those agencies could move programs to new community centers currently underused in rebuilt schools. The most pressing immediate need is to pay for constructive activities for “all these kids riding around the street creating mayhem,” Goldfield said.
At Thursday’s lunch, they agreed that the new $1 million fund, called the Board of Aldermen Youth Initiative, could do both. Neighborhood groups trying to launch new programs for kids, such as parent patrol leader Greg Smith in Dwight, could apply for mini-grants of up to $5,000. Established agencies like LEAP could apply for larger grants for programming. And a third category will be set up for grants for physical improvements to their buildings. It’s unclear at this point how large those grants can be.
Those numbers are tentaive. The aldermen will still work out the details in committee. Goldfield said the preponderance of the money will still probably go directly into programming.
The fact that both sides worked together greatly increases the likelihood that the plan could succeed in coming months.
Goldfield said he and the others are committed to making this more than a one-time initiative. “We know where” the first $1 million is coming from (the WPCA), and “we’re going to have to commit ourselves” to finding new sources for that $1 million in the future.
The city administration originally opposed using proceeds from the WPCA sale, a one-time revenue, for youth programming when Perez originally proposed it earlier this year. The mayor said he saw no need for a new youth policy. Then a summer of mayhem caused by idle kids built pressure on the mayor, even from his allies, to craft take action and craft a policy. Now the mayor says he supports the WPCA proposal and considers it part one of a larger effort the city will launch to give kids more to do. He says his administration is working on part two, a comprehensive youth policy with an assessment of what programming already exists and proposals for long-term ways to fill the gaps.