L.A. rethinking its anti-gang programs

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a splash when he announced plans last week for ending L.A. Bridges, an anti-gang initiative under fire since the Riordan administration for failing to demonstrate clear results.

But in dropping the L.A. Bridges programs and shifting the money to his appointed "gang czar," Villaraigosa put off yet again answering one key question: Are these programs, which last year received $13.2 million, successful in quelling violence and keeping kids out of gangs?

When Villaraigosa's proposed budget is made public today, it is expected to offer an additional $7.2 million to gang prevention and intervention programs, allowing the same contractors who ran programs under L.A. Bridges the opportunity to apply for even more money.

Because the anti-gang efforts are being redesigned, a full evaluation of those programs won't be practical until at least 2010, said Deputy Mayor Jeff Carr, the city's gang czar.

"It's going to be a couple years" before the results are in, he said. "And really, it will be beyond that. Because we're setting something new in motion."

Politicians have struggled for nearly a decade to assess the city's signature anti-gang initiative, ever since former Mayor Richard Riordan was denounced by City Council members and community leaders for criticizing it. Two recently commissioned reports have sharply critiqued the city's overall anti-gang strategy, yet did not evaluate L.A. Bridges.

Villaraigosa aides say L.A. Bridges has become such a sacred cow that the only way to reform it is to rebuild it from the ground up -- a process that will take two years to complete and review.

"There has been a need to reform the way we provide these services for more than a decade, and up until now that reform has been thwarted by politics," said Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo.

The review of the new programs will come partway into Villaraigosa's second term, if he is reelected. Even City Controller Laura Chick, who pushed for anti-gang initiatives to prove their worth, is leaving the evaluation to her successor.

"There will be no real performance audit, or real audit and evaluation by me," said Chick, who leaves office in June 2009.

Until now, L.A. Bridges has been supervised by the city's Community Development Department, an agency whose top executive reports to Villaraigosa.