Los Angeles County leaders, who more than a year and a half ago promised to revamp their $105-million-a-year gang intervention effort, are still months away from a new strategy, hobbled by repeated delays and haggling over details.
William T Fujioka, the county's chief executive, is scheduled to unveil his plan for county supervisors Dec. 16, more than a year after the deadline first set by the supervisors. In contrast, Los Angeles
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, December 04, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 96 words Type of Material: Correction
Gang intervention: An article in Sunday's California section about Los Angeles County's delayed efforts to revamp its anti-gang initiative reported that Gary Hearnsberger had stepped down as head of the county's Interagency Gang Task Force last year. Hearnsberger is the new chairman of the task force. He replaced Marty Vranicar, former supervisor of the city attorney's gang unit, who left last year to become executive director of the California District Attorneys Assn. The article also said that Peter Shutan, a deputy city attorney, had replaced Hearnsberger. Shutan is the new vice chairman of the task force.
.city leaders moved forward months ago and have a dozen programs in place.
After much infighting, the county plan includes pilot sites in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood north of Watts and in the Pacoima area, where Los Angeles County sheriff's officials are working with Los Angeles and San Fernando police to combat gangs.
It remains unclear, however, how they will be structured, funded or monitored. Critics fault Fujioka and his staff for dragging their feet and downsizing the so-called Gangs and Violence Reduction Strategy while residents of unincorporated areas of the county targeted by gangs repeatedly asked for more help.
"It shouldn't have taken this long," said civil rights lawyer Connie Rice, whose public policy group, the Advancement Project, issued a report in January 2007 that called for a massive, coordinated regional effort to fight gangs and spurred a rethinking of both city and county efforts. The $593,000 report was commissioned and paid for by the city of Los Angeles.
Fujioka and his staff have been tight-lipped about details. The presentation has been pushed back twice this month as they met with Sheriff Lee Baca and his staff and supervisors' staffers to hash out details.
At next month's meeting, Fujioka plans to ask for four more months to develop the strategy and cost estimates, according to copies of his proposal released this month to supervisors' staffers.
Central to that draft is a controversial gang emergency operations center proposed by Baca that would allow the county staff to waive confidentiality laws and share information about individuals involved with or at risk of becoming involved with gangs.
Late last month, Baca made a rare appearance at a supervisors' staff briefing and spent two hours pushing the center, which he proposed a year ago. He has asked for $3 million in his proposed budget for technology and staff to run the program.
"For every week or two that goes by, we don't know if we could have prevented a gang murder or a crime with the absence of this program," he said.
Supervisors' staffers have been insisting for months that the sheriff cannot waive confidentiality to fight crime. Earlier this month, a shouting match broke out between supervisors' and sheriff's staffers at a meeting to consider the latest draft of the strategy.
Fujioka said last week that the sheriff's proposed center no longer is part of his gang proposal, calling it too costly and unnecessary to the pilot programs. He declined to release a copy of his amended proposal until he presents it to the board.
"I'm not going to support" an emergency operations center, Fujioka said. "I don't see success as contingent on having a center."
Rice said the county's anti-gang strategy is being whittled down.
"Every letter I see, the program gets smaller and smaller," Rice said. The city of Los Angeles, she noted, "is already off to the races."
Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke first called for a reevaluation of the county's anti-gang strategy in May 2007, a month after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the city's new gang reduction plan based on the Advancement Project's report. The day after Burke's call for action, supervisors voted to have county staff review the report, as well as the city plans, and report back in four months with a new county strategy.
The review was hobbled by numerous stops and starts.
Fujioka took over the project after he became county chief executive in July 2007. Two months later, he appointed a committee of city, county and community officials, including Rice. Committee members gave him their recommendations in February, then stopped meeting.
Meanwhile, Gary Hearnsberger, head deputy district attorney, stepped down as the chairman of the county's Interagency Gang Task Force, a committee that is supposed to monitor anti-gang programs. The task force also stopped meeting in February and reconvened briefly earlier this month only to be briefed by Fujioka's staff on the new strategy and select a new chairman, Peter Shutan, deputy city attorney. It plans to meet monthly.
The last countywide spending report on anti-gang programs was released in July 2007. Supervisors requested an update in June but Fujioka postponed it, even after he received supervisors' approval to hire a county analyst to work on the strategy; the analyst is to be paid between $97,000 and $127,000.
Fujioka also postponed a cost analysis of the new strategy, due in June, until later this month. His staff said they have not started it.
