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Human Services Advisory Commission
Meeting Minutes
October 11, 2005
7:40 – 9:40 PM
Rockville Senior Center
Members Present: |
Mary Caroline Colletti |
Deborah Hopson |
Tom Lawrey |
David L’Heureux |
Paul Mutyambizi |
Ann Reiss |
Agnes Saenz |
Tim Stranges |
Eric Wang |
|
Staff Present: |
Mary Lou Jacobs |
|
Guests: |
Terry Treschuk, Chief of Police, City of Rockville |
Robin Sparer, Youth & Family Services Supervisor, City of Rockville |
Re: Call Meeting to Order /Introductions
Tim Stranges called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m. Tim asked everyone to introduce himself or herself.
Re: Prevalence of Gang Activity in Rockville and City-Sponsored Prevention Activities
Guests: Terry Treschuk, Chief of Police
Robin Sparer, Youth & Family Services Supervisor
Terry Treschuk, Chief of Police: Chief Treschuk began by saying that the agenda item is somewhat misleading because there is not a prevalence of gang activity in the city of Rockville. To put the issue in perspective, he will discuss the problem more generically. Across the country, especially in the larger cities, there are people who band together specifically for the purpose of criminal activities. Gang activity in the United States has been growing for a number of reasons:
In the DC area, gang activity is both national and local. On the national level, there are the Bloods, the Crypts, the Latin Kings, and MS-13. There are gangs with ties throughout the nation and to other countries. Just as importantly, there are neighborhood gangs, especially in D.C. It could be the 3rd Street Gang, for example, or the 75th Street Gang. One of the largest drug cartels on the East Coast was a neighborhood gang in D.C. seven years ago—a young man, age 19, making over $100 million. He is still in jail.
Since the 1990’s there have been issues with gangs in Montgomery County but no one wanted to talk about the problem. The largest concentrations of gangs are upcounty (Gaithersburg and Germantown area) and downcounty (Silver Spring area). Rockville is located right between those two areas. Rockville has some gang members living in the city and gang parents living in the city (which actually makes our city a safe zone). There are also people passing through the city on the 270 corridor going back and forth to the District. Much of the information related to gangs comes from the Montgomery County Gang Task Force, which provides an opportunity for different police departments to share information about gangs. Gang members do not observe jurisdictional boundaries; they go where they wish to go. So it is important that police jurisdictions share information and work together. Rockville has a member on the Gang Task Force. In addition the Rockville Police Department has just established a Gang Investigator whose primary focus will be working on intelligence gathering.
In the Rockville area the Rockville Police has seen evidence of three different gangs:
Many kids dress alike although they are not necessarily gang members. Conversely there are people who dress alike, who wear certain colors and flash certain signs. There has been some violence at the Wheaton Plaza and at the Montgomery County Fair over the last couple of years, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. We’ve become an urban county—no longer rural or even suburban—and we have some big city issues.
Most of the publicity on gangs in our area is of MS 13. Chief Treschuk thinks that is erroneous because there are other larger issues and other gangs. There is a small percentage of Asian gangs in this area although there is a higher percentage in the Falls Church, Fairfax, Northern Virginia area. There, gang members prey primarily on the Asian population who often will not report incidents.
There is not a lot of evidence of gangs in the city. One sign of gangs that the City looks for is graffiti. 80 to 85% of the graffiti in Rockville is not gang related; it is simply people who have no regard for the property of others. You will see it up and down Rockville Pike, at Montgomery College, at the Metro stops, where newspaper and utility boxes are marked up. As quickly as the graffiti is cleaned up, the same people come back and redo it. When graffiti is gang-related, it shows the gang’s colors or name. Gang members write their names to show that they own the turf where the graffiti is located. This leads to gang fighting where other gangs will write over it to show that the location is their turf.
In the city we have a community task force that works with all the other agencies in the city. Its members have cameras and keep track of the graffiti for intelligence purposes and to create a record to use in court when someone is arrested. According to our Recreation and Parks Department and our Public Works Department, the City is spending thousands of dollars every year to clean up graffiti. That doesn’t count the police time spent recording the graffiti.
The county has a specific States Attorney who concentrates on prosecution of gang issues, Jeffrey Wennar. Jeff also works as an animal control judge and is a good friend of the Rockville Police Department so they are able to talk with him about many issues. Should we be concerned? Absolutely. Is the city overrun with gang activity? Absolutely not. But we need to keep a watch on what is going on in other areas—Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, Germantown or Olney.
Commission members can play a role in gang prevention by passing along information on gang awareness, talking with parents, being observant. For example, you may see young children who are out late at night, perhaps in the care of an older sibling because their parents are somewhere else. Or you may observe teens having parties at home during the day when they should be at school or witness other truancy issues. There needs to be less reliance on government to correct these issues, to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents, and more parental responsibility taken to prevent delinquent behavior. Unfortunately many of these issues start when children are left on their own. Gangs are now a fact of life and everyone needs to be vigilant.
Robin Sparer, Youth & Family Services Supervisor: To follow up on the Chief’s comments, no one has been doing gang intervention or gang prevention historically because the subject of gangs was ignored in the county. This year the schools in Montgomery County have been heavily funded to address the gang issue. They have their own task force and will be developing a comprehensive plan for the schools. In addition to the Gang Task Force, the County’s Health and Human Services Department has recently taken the lead in bringing together youth service providers to discuss the issue. Also recently, Robin was able to attend the National Gang Symposium, a gathering of law enforcement people from all over the country who met to talk about gang prevention and intervention. Many programs that were represented at the Symposium began from a single tragic incident in their communities. She hopes nothing happens in Rockville and is pleased to see the current proactive approach to the gang problem.
Youth Service Bureaus in the state were set up to address school cluster issues. The City’s Department of Community Services, which houses the Youth Service Bureau for Rockville, handles these issues for the Wootton, Richard Montgomery and Rockville clusters, e.g., social adjustment issues, anger management, and the increase in teen pregnancy. She believes the latter is related to the gang issue because this is one way for a girl to gain status within a gang. Robin has also recently joined the Commission for Children and Youth in order to represent municipalities and Youth and Family Services. The Commission will be looking at gang prevention and after school programs, which are linked to each other. One of the things to figure out is what types of activities youth really want. One of these is work force development. Many youth can’t work but have a responsibility to bring income into the home so they find illegal ways to make money. RISE has done a good job of work force development in the Lincoln Park community. The Department would like to encourage that program to reach into other neighborhoods but some of its funding was cut by the Collaboration Council. The Council had to reallocate its funding to other areas of the county.
Robin learned from the conference she attended that the City of Houston has an Office of Gang Prevention and is a direct service provider. Its staff has had major success in this area. Their outreach workers are always available, nights and weekends, not just from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Robin considers this an important strategy. It’s critical to be available at the times that kids get in trouble. Right now the Department of Community Services is trying to start a youth development program for Latino youth. Activities will include community service activities but, instead of using stipends as motivation, there will be a soccer team, which is what kids say they want. Hopefully, in January, the program will start with indoor soccer at the Soccerplex. There will be about 18 middle and high school youth who have issues with fighting, poor boundaries, and delinquent behavior. Another component of the program will be to work with parents as well. Very often parents are totally unaware of their child’s participation in gang activities. The Department also still operates the Charlas Program. Charlas translated is “chat” in Spanish and the program provides an opportunity for Latino parents to informally discuss issues affecting their families and their children and to learn about resources in the community. Meetings take place in the evening at Twinbrook Elementary.
Eric Wang commented that it seems as though we already know what the problem is. We simply need to address it. Robin agreed and recommended that Commission members look at the Montgomery County home page where they could read the recommendations of the Regional Gang Task Force Report. Fairfax County is way ahead of Montgomery County because of their issue with violent crime. It will take more money or a reshuffling of monies.
Mary Lou Jacobs added that about ten days ago the City had an interdepartmental meeting to clarify the prevalence of gang activity in the city. Included in that meeting were the City Manager, the Assistant City Manager, the Chief of Police, the Director of Recreation and Parks, Mary Lou and other key City staff. Based on that meeting, the City’s official position is that we do not have a gang problem in Rockville—the City has issues with gangs around us, people coming through the city, and the potential for problems developing in the future. The reason Mary Lou thought it was important to get that clarification is because it would look bad if we went to the state and said that Rockville needs money for gang problems and then have our police chief and city leaders say that we are not a high priority for funding. It is premature for Rockville to be advocating at the state level. But it is appropriate for Commission members to monitor the problem.
Re: Discussion of Policy Questions Re: REAP Payment Criteria
Mary Lou introduced the discussion of the Rockville Emergency Assistance Program (REAP) by saying that she is looking to the Commission for some policy guidance. This is a program that every year the City provides an allocation for in the outside agency grant category. The funds to operate the program actually go to Community Ministries of Rockville but REAP is a partnership between the City and that agency. Community Services staff do the screening for all cases that exceed $100 or more. Community Ministries of Rockville staff and volunteers screen all cases for less than $100. The program was established in 1982 with the purpose of providing short-term, last resort, emergency assistance to Rockville residents. At that time the City approved a pot of $100,000 and once that fund was depleted, as Mary Lou understands, there were expected to be other resources to replenish that pot. Apparently, the City has always had sufficient funds because the program has been refunded for many years.
Mary Lou said that when she began working for the City, the funding for the program on an annual basis was about $50,000 and it stayed that way for several years. In the last few years, the amount of requests has substantially increased as recorded in the memo that Commission members received.
David L’Heureux asked if the City requires recipients to pay back the money they receive so that others might benefit as well. Mary Lou responded that it does not but the Commission might want to recommend this strategy.
She continued that one reason for this discussion is that energy costs are expected to increase substantially this winter. Last year the City ran out of money twice. To solve this problem the outside agency undesignated contingency amount was tapped in April. Then the program looked like it would be running out of money again so the community contribution account that the City maintains was used. The allocation for last year was $57,000. The total amount distributed was about $70,000 so there was a substantial overrun last year. This year the allocation was increased to $69,000. If the spending stays similar to last year, this should be sufficient but with the increased cost of energy Mary Lou is concerned that it won’t be enough.
In researching this issue Mary Lou went to speak with the Rockville Housing Enterprises (RHE) Board. She felt this was important to do because almost half of the people receiving REAP assistance are also receiving housing assistance through RHE.
When people apply for REAP they are asked first to go the County and apply there for emergency assistance funds. When Robin and Mary Lou met with Vera Johnson, Department of Health and Human Services Emergency Services Supervisor, they learned that the County gives assistance just once a year to individuals. Currently the County is able to provide up to $1,500 per applicant, although typically they provide $500. They are looking to increase this amount. (The City provides individuals a maximum of $750 per year. Applicants can apply every 90 days if they haven’t used the full amount.) If the County Emergency Services receives approval for this proposed increase, they would like to provide up to one month’s rent to an individual applicant. At the meeting Mary Lou also asked if the County ever runs out of money. The answer was no. County officials see their program as a homelessness prevention program and consider it less expensive to provide emergency funds than to house families for an extended period. Looking at REAP as a supplement to the County’s program is a useful framework for asking some questions. The questions Mary Lou asked the Commission to consider are:
These are the policy questions that Mary Lou is looking for guidance on.
Discussion followed related to the specifics of administering REAP. Then Mary Caroline Colletti said that she considers REAP an emergency program and when someone is in an emergency, they need help now, which she considers a priority. She is concerned that many people who have never applied for REAP before may be coming in this year. The program should try and serve as many people as possible. At the same time, perhaps, there should be some analysis of recidivists. Maybe this situation most needs evaluation. Agnes Saenz said that she thought every situation should be considered case by case without regard to whether the applicant is a Section 8 or public housing recipient; there should not be a lifetime limit to the amount an applicant can receive.
After some additional discussion, David moved that the REAP program should continue to be administered as it is currently; that Tim write a letter alerting the Mayor and Council that action may be needed to ensure that funding levels for REAP remain adequate to meet the expected increase in demand resulting from higher energy costs; and that the City continue to monitor the correlation between housing subsidies and REAP. Agnes seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
Re: Rockville Reports Insert
Mary Lou reported that the deadline for getting the information completed for the December insert is in a couple of weeks. She and Sarah have already met with the Public Information Officer and discussed the layout. The memo Commission members received outlined the suggestions made at that meeting. She recommended that if anyone had additional ideas they communicate them to Tim who could relay them to her.
Re: Approve July 12 Meeting Minutes
David moved that the minutes be approved as written. Agnes seconded the motion. The minutes were approved with no changes.
Re: Updates from Chair
Tim reported that the Mayor and Council had reappointed Deborah Hopson, David L’Heureux and Agnes Saenz. Also, Agnes advised Commission members that the Caregivers Coalition, at their last meeting, unanimously recommended that Michelle Beadle be appointed as their representative to the Commission. The Commission agreed that the nomination should be forwarded to the mayor and council for action.
Re: Plan Agenda for November Meeting
Re: Adjourn
Deborah moved to adjourn the meeting. David seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 9:40 p.m. The next meeting of the Human Services Advisory Commission will be held Tuesday, November 8, 2005, from 7:30 - 9:30 p.m., at the Rockville Senior Center.