How Many and How Much More Will Be Wasted?

We see the shrines throughout our travels. Burned down candles, half filled balloons floating just above the sidewalk, stale and wilted flowers in a vase with a religious symbol. Another makeshift memoriam to someone killed either by another or in an auto accident, or who knows how we wonder. When it is one of their own gang-bangers will mark the sight of their dead homie with graffiti and signs of his gang affiliation. When it is one of their victims law abiding citizens will ask "why?" and state "this can't continue." But it will.

In May 2008 I wrote in the Long Beach Post that the City of Long Beach had announced it spends almost $30 million per year on gang prevention programs. Between then and Melody Ross' murder in front of Wilson High School on October 30th the city has spent approximately $45 million on gang "prevention." The City has the Human Dignity Program, the Youth and Gang Prevention Task Force, police department school district and countless non-profit agencies dedicated to gang prevention. In their parlance, "provide our youth with alternatives to gangs and reduce the root causes of gang violence" is their objective. And has been for decades. $30 million per year from the City budget for gang "prevention."

Los Angeles County spends tens, if not hundreds, of millions on gang "prevention" programs; the State of California spends millions and millions on special grants and funding for gang "prevention programs"; our Congressional and Senate representatives tell us funding for gang "prevention" programs are priorities. All told hundreds of millions of dollars are focused on gang "prevention" programs in our community and county. All directed by our progressive elected officials and bureaucrats who through their decades of efforts and direction of "prevention" programs have failed.

The programs fail because the focus has been on preventing kids from entering gangs and not on eradicating the gangs. The programs fail because the culture that fosters gangs and gang membership is left alone and individual children are asked to go against their brothers, cousins, absentee dads and mothers. The programs fail because while politicians like to get elected on solving the gang problems in our community, once elected they become passive and fall into the politically correct "prevention" programs.

The Los Angeles Sheriffs Department began a very successful gang sweep and interdiction program in the City of Hawaiian Gardens. Historically a city controlled by some very violent gangs, they citizens of Hawaiian Gardens have lived under gang rule and seen their kids murdered or pulled into the gangs. Rather than welcome law enforcement coming into their community to rid it of these murders and drug dealers, the citizens protested. They protested the Sheriffs Department actively pursuing known gang members and removing them from their city. Members of the clergy protested accusing the Sheriffs of racism, ignoring the racist element of the city's gangs targeting citizens of a different race. Mothers who have lost children to the gangs protested. In elections last week politicians who ran against the Sheriff Department's anti-gang program lost. The voters protected the gang bangers.

The outcry following Melody Ross' tragic death underscores the issues facing our community, and others, moving forward. There are those who are upset that the juveniles arrested for the murder had their name published. There are those who want all of us to understand how three 16 year old kids crossed paths, one an honor student, athlete and wonder young woman, the other two gang members and now murders. They feel it is important for me to understand how society failed the two murders that led them to gang membership and violence. There are those who blame you, and me, and all of us for this murder because of gun laws, violence on television, rap lyrics, everything but where the blame should lie.

Until our community elects officials at all levels of government who are willing to put the rights and values of our community first and those of gang members and their enablers second, or third, fourth...we will never have any solutions to our gang problems. Here are some places we can start.

Stop protecting Cease with the withholding names and photos of perpetrators of violent crimes, regardless of their ages. Society, school mates, parents, teachers, have a right to know if a criminal is in their class, or neighborhood. Further publish the names, photos and addresses of any known parents. Let's see the faces of those who reared the murderers of Melody Ross. Let their neighbors know "The people responsible for the child who murdered another child live here." They took no accountability to this point for their children, make them do so now.

Restitution If you child graffiti's a building you are going to be financially responsible, can't pay then community service or time in jail. Your child commits physical violence on another? Community service and possible criminal charges if it recures. Your child murders another you are charged with criminal negligence and child endangerment. When police do gang sweeps and arrest minors their parents get picked up too. Both parents, track the Dads and pull them in as well.

Audits We need to have serious audits of the hundreds of millions of dollars that have obviously been wasted on "prevention" programs. I call on City Auditor Laura Doud to audit the City of Long Beach's spending on gang "prevention" programs. At a time when our police department budget is under fire and our schools are losing millions from the state, it is time to see what funds are being wasted by our city. Who gets the $30 million per year? What are the measurable results? Are there specific outcomes that are posted for the funds? Are those using the funds actually adhering to the programs used to solicit the funds? And I come back to results, what are the results of the city spending all this money year after year?

Political Our elected politicians need to have the courage to call out the gang communities. Call out the failing parents and culture that exist in the neighborhoods where gangs thrive. For $30 million per year we can set up permanent patrols and 24/7 police presence in the five neighborhoods where most our our gang activity originates and cultivates for decades. Give the police the authority and the direction to erradicate the gangs. Have the courage to take the heat for a pro-active police department pursuing gang members and going block by block with warrants and crack downs. Resolve to get gangs out of our city.

Enough Enough with the current failed methods of "prevention." We have tried and failed, failed Melody and her family and hundreds of others over the past several years when "prevention" became the progressive method of solving our gang problems.

Sadly in the not too distant future we will read of another tragic shooting, another innocent daughter, son, mother, baby, killed by some bullet meant for another. And the community will say "we need to stop this." And the community will not.

Just Some Questions

Below are questions I have asked myself throughout the past week. Instead of writing what my answers to them would be I am interested in any answers you may have, or additional questions you have asked yourself.

For the week starting Monday November 2, 2009 here are some questions I have had:

What is the goal of health care reform?

Did you root for the Yankees?

Absentee ballot or visit your polling place?

Greatest living American author?

Is it harder to lose weight and diet or cut expenses and save money?

Greatest dead American author?

Did you make a new friend this week?

How does creating 111 new agencies or departments in the Federal government make health care cheaper and more accessible?

Are your pumpkins still on your porch?

Has anyone done the math?

Does the title to my post on Wednesday look pretty familiar to one used by a popular Long Beach website discussing the aftermath of the parcel tax vote?

What are you feelings on the amount of Federal spending in 2009 and spending obligations into the future?

What old friend did you reconnect with this week?

When is the best time for a daily walk, morning, lunchtime, evening?

Should juveniles convicted as adults be subject to all the same punishments?

How often do you use a dictionary?

How many cars have you owned and how many have been manufactured by American companies?

Are you down to that Halloween candy that no one really wants?

What was your guilty pleasure this week?

Sweater or sweatshirt?

What do you think about moving “Just Some Questions” to Fridays to see if we can get more responses?

Cookies or Pie?

So those are the questions, what are your answers? Click on the comments button below and let us know what you think.

Voters: Now What?

Now what?


More incumbents? And you know as well as I do in our gerrymandered state state "incumbent" is appropriately tagged to the replacement candidate for any incumbents termed out.


Now what?


Another round of elections installing the same people to make the same votes and pass the same laws and spending bills and budgets that have doubled spending from Sacramento in ten year? Another round of elections installing the same people to complain that the state budget problems have nothing to do with their economic ignorance and over spending but instead has to do with not enough taxes being collected from the citizens of the state?


Now what?


Local voters go to the polls next year and punch the same hole they have punched in every one of the past elections that memory serves? Re-elect the same people who say you aren't taxed enough and then go to Sacramento to increase their spending yet again, except for where you need it?


Now what?


Listen to the politician you elected tell you it is not their fault they have to take another five, ten, twenty million from the school district where you send your child? Listen as they sit their with their majority as they cajole only one, two, or three members of the other party to join them as they pass a budget raising fees, closing parks, and stealing more money from your child's classroom?


Now what?


What are you, the voter in Long Beach, or Lakewood, or Signal Hill, who voted against Measure T going to do? Sanction our elected representatives in Sacramento behavior that took $100 million away from the district in the past five years? Because if you re-elect them that is exactly what you are doing. Same goes for you in Los Angeles, in San Francisco, in Marin County, in San Diego. Up and down the state every vote that is caste for a sitting member of the Assembly or Senate that voted to pass the current state budget, or the budget before that, or the budget before that, is a vote sanctioning poor economic decisions, a vote supporting taking funds from local districts and a vote against local control of education.


Now what?


What is going to change so our school district is not forced to cut security officers that patrol football games and hallways? How are you going to vote to ensure more funds aren't stripped from our schools so we can have a nurse even two days a week? What responsibility will you take with your vote so another day of an open library can happen on the campus your child attends?


Voters within the Long Beach Unified School District overwhelmingly defeated the Measure T parcel tax. It was pretty evident that the majority of those voting did not want to pay a couple of more dollars per month to provide some direct funding for operations to our district, funding that could not be stolen by the same people this majority has elected to represent them in every election in the past decade. So now what? What is this majority going to do in next year's primary and general elections to change the cycle of greed and glut in Sacramento that has seen our school district's budgets decimated by the majorities in the Assembly and Senate and abetted by a few members of the opposition and the Governor who ultimately did not veto those budgets.


Now what?


Here's what I think. I think every incumbent in our local elections for state office will get re-elected, those off the ballot because of running for another office or term limits will have their political clones elected. The winners will be supported by campaign donations from public employees unions, both locally and statewide. The winners will run unchallenged in their primaries and win with comfortable majorities in this little corner of California that is cozy for them. The winners will not have their voting records looked at by the voters, nor will the voters consider the ideas and positions of any one else on the ballots. The winners will win despite aiding and abetting the financial decline and ruin of this state as the voters blindly vote for the letter inside the parenthesis next to their name, (D), and ignore their actions in the budget process. The winners will get another term in office from an electorate that voted not to pay an additional $8 per month for education but will vote to support a politician who has raised other fees and taxes a lot more than $8 per month.


In this scenario you can substitute my local area for any area of this gerrymandered state that has protected a substantial majority for the Democrats in Sacramento. A comfortable majority that has bullied and pushed and pulled and whined and screamed through every budget process to get a handful of Republicans and a governor to sign off on their budgets. Budgets that have cut $100 million in revenue from our local school district. Budgets that have included the largest tax increase in American history by a state on its people. Budgets that are sanctified by the electorate every time they re-elect their incumbents.


Message heard loud and clear Long Beach: LBUSD we don't want to provide you any additional revenue, go ahead and make your cuts. Message to Long Beach voters: don't bitch when those cuts affect your child. Don't bitch when you lose a nurse. Lose PE. Lose Art. Lose AP French. Lose Chess Club. Lose security officers. You caused this with your votes electing members of the Assembly and Senate, now accept responsibility.

Now what?

Parents Get Out And Vote "YES" On Measure T

If you are a parent with children in the Long Beach Unified School District, if you are a parent with children that will be entering the Long Beach Unified School District, if you are a grandparent, aunt, cousin, or neighbor to children in the Long Beach Unified School District get out of the house tomorrow, Tuesday November 3rd, and vote YES on Measure T. Please.


The average voter is to lazy too check facts or understand and issue or candidate before voting, as evidenced by our election results. Our state's voters have passed billions of dollars in bonds, and that means debt and mandatory interest payments that eat into our general funds, for stem cell research, Delta watershed restructuring with no funds spent, high speed rail binding us to more spending later; locally voters have passed higher sales taxes for 30 years to support failing Metrorail and other projects that have proven to be filled with waste of taxpayer funds. In the meantime our electorate has routinely voted the same people into offices, either the same office or rotating between offices due to term limits, that have pushed our state further and further into financial ruin.

And then they wonder why our state is in such a mess. Why their tax refund is not in the mail. Why they can't renew their license at the DMV on Friday. Why their kid no longer gets to go to science camp. One year from now they will dutifully look for the (D) (locally in Long Beach and Los Angeles County) and punch the ballot to re-elect the same people again and we will fall further into financial ruin. Before doing that I am hopeful two-thirds will vote yes on Measure T on Tuesday.

In the meantime, as legislators in Sacramento have wasting our tax dollars our local award winning school district has lost $100 million in funds from the State of California in the past 5 years. Schools have lost librarians, nurses, phys ed instructors, computer lab instructors, art and music teachers.


Here are some of the arguments I have heard agaisnt Measure T:


Expense: It costs $96 per year, not per month, per year. This is a couple of dinners out for the year for a family of four. It is less than 20% of one month's payment on your huge SUV you drop your kids off in. It is $8 per month, less than you spend per week at Starbuck or It's A Grind for your mocha-latte after dropping the kids off. Cars and coffee's can't teach your kids to read or prepare them for the AP English test.

Length: This is one of times that short is good. Measure T is only in effect for 5 years. Five Years. Not 30 years like the MTA tax passed by LA County voters last years. Not until repealed by the District or legislators. Five Years. Total parcel tax payments by the voters: $480 over 5 years. (I did that math in my head because I had good math teachers, does your child?)

Been There: Measure T is only for operations. In the early 1990's voters passed a bond measure to build, rebuild and remodel schools in Long Beach. We benefited from new campuses like Powell Academy and Dooley Elementary. A few years ago voters passed another bond measure, Measure K, for capital construction, remodeling and fixing the schools' infrastructures. These funds were well thought out and will result in new campuses and upgrades on many existing campuses. Those measures added 0.0008% to tax bills ($80 per year per $100,000 assessed value), further Measure K was a matching funds measure, in passing the bond voters allowed the District to receiving matching funds from the State for previously passed measures. For every $80 paid by property owners another $80 is recieved by the state. Those funds are in use, are improving our schools and have nothing to do with Measure T as no funds from Measure K can be used for operations.

Timing: The local paper's editorial board has said, "now is not the time." When is? When is a good time for local voters to send a message to elected officials that they are tired of their stealing money from their kids school and will pay for it themselves, and oh by the way we will remember this next November (just kidding, our voters really have no memory hence the re-election of the same candidates that created our problems). Now is not the time because of the economy. How about now is the time because many property owners have seen their property taxes go down with property values? How about now is the time because the next time our school system will have imposed cuts to education that diminishes our schools and therefore prpoerty values. Now is not the time to add $8 per month to property owners' tax bills? The editors who wrote this opinion spend that on lunch every day.

Quality: People love to point out anything bad that happens at their kid's school or stories of what has happened to other kids and campuses. LBUSD educates about 90,000 students every day. It employs thousands of teachers, janitors, coaches, principals, accountants, health care specialists, nutrition specialists and administrators. Someone is always willing to say, "not enough spent on students" "too much this" "too much that." I personally know Superintendent Chris Steinhauser, three of the four current members of the school board, many principals and administrators. To a person I know them to be honest, caring and commited, framing their decisions with one question: what is best for our students. There are plenty of naysayers and those who cast stones. I will close on these points that need continued support by our community so they can continue and grow:

* Broad Finalist Year After Year our District has been nationally recognized as one of the top five, and top, urban school district in the country

* Millions of dollars are received by LBUSD high school graduates every year in scholarships to colleges and universities across the country

* Millions of dollars are saved by parents every year in college and university tuition fees because their children have taken and passed Advance Placement classes in many disciplines, thereby earning college credits and not needing those classes in college.

* Continued recognition by the Obama Administration as the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan repeatedly uses LBUSD as an example for other districts in California and across the state.

Long Beach Unified School District is unique in the State of California. It has commited leadership that has attended our schools, who live in our neighborhoods and care about your children. It is being torn apart by decisions made by Sacramento that strip needed funding year after year.

Parents, grandparents, uncles, neighbors need to step up to support our great school district, vote YES on Measure T on Tuesday.

http://www.yesonmeasuret.com/

Just Some Questions

Below are questions I have asked myself throughout the past week. Instead of writing what my answers to them would be I am interested in any answers you may have, or additional questions you have asked yourself.

For the week starting Monday October 26, 2009 here are some questions I have had:

Should the First Time Homebuyer tax credit continue?

Does that little dial on the coffee maker to make your coffee stronger or weaker really work? Why not just add more or less grounds to the basket?

Why is there no outrage over the completely inadequate supply of flu vaccines?

1990 pages?

Do you snore?

Have you ever said, “This has too much brown sugar?”

What is the most money you have spent at the 99 cent store?

Is the room in your home that is coldest in winter also the hottest in the summer?

For non-government employees, have government furlough days affected you at all?

If time flies, what walks?

Long Beachians: Best soup Bake’N’Broil Navy Bean and Ham, 555 Crab Bisque or Lasher’s Clam Chowder?

Does any legally registered voter in California have any less opportunity than any other legally registered voter to cast his or her ballot?

The parents know their kid did the shooting, the friends know, will they protect this coward or be just as cowardly and continue to want to live in our community?

Should the identity of teenage murders, and there for their families, be protected?

God bless Melody Ross, her family, her friends, her teachers and other students at Wilson High School. Rot in hell coward who fired randomly into a crowd.

Cookies or Pie?

So those are the questions, what are your answers? Click on the comments button below and let us know what you think.