It's nice to get to work and find that someone has made part of my job a whole lot easier. In the opinion section in today's Daily News, Chuck Williams, former co-chairman of Philadelphia Against Drugs, Guns and Violence, one of Philly's many anti-violence community groups, has a plan, complete with details, to decrease gun violence.
Within the first 100 days in office, the next mayor should draft and sign these executive orders:
First Executive Order: The mayor, along with all Cabinet-level officials, will attend the funerals of every murder victim in the city of Philadelphia in 2008.
Second Executive Order: All Cabinet-level salaries will be cut by 2 percent starting in 2009 for every 100 murders in the city.
Third Executive Order: No anti-violence community safety programs or initiatives will be funded unless there is a clear demonstration that there will be true inter-agency cooperation and partnerships. This will be evidenced by working with two or more organizations. This will be enforced in 2009, giving organizations some time to build and develop such partnerships.
Fourth Executive Order: Anti-violence and community-safety programs that cannot demonstrate that they have met measurable outcomes by the end of 2009 will lose all city funding for the following year.
Whether you agree or disagree with how effective these executive orders would be, it's important that we start hearing ideas from everyone in the community, especially now before the Could-Be mayors get their campaigns into full swing and suck all the air out of the room. This is your time to provide ideas on any one of a number of issues and to comment on/disagree with/improve upon the ideas of others.
Williams has more suggestions that I'll reproduce here without comment:
- A nationwide search for the next police commissioner will begin during the first 100 days. To ensure that Philadelphia is able to recruit a top law-enforcement expert, the salary for the commissioner will be raised to $200,000. As part of the new commissioner's contract, he will be expected to take SEPTA to and from work at least twice a week. This will keep the commissioner in touch with realities of the average working Philadelphia citizen. Starting in the second year (2009), the commissioner's salary will be cut by 2.5 percent for every 100 murders in the city.
- The police commissioner's office will be moved to the second floor of City Hall. For far too long, the commissioner has been somewhat isolated from the crime and public-safety policy discussions conducted at City Hall by members of City Council, senior staff and the mayor. Given that policy is the driving force behind any major changes, the police commissioner needs to be involved in these discussions regularly.
- One of the existing deputy commissioner slots will be changed to Deputy Commissioner for Community Outreach and Prevention (COP). It will focus on connecting with community groups such as Mothers Against Drugs, Men United, Safe Schools Safer Communities, Mothers in Charge, Stolen Dreams, Mothers United, Philadelphia Anti-Drug Anti-Violence Network, Town Watch, Police Clergy and Youth Against Violence.
- Create a Deputy Mayor's Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention (DCCP).
It will work closely with the White House Executive Office of Drug Control Policy.
It will compete for state and federal grant/research monies.
Half of the budget for this office will be focused on community crime-prevention strategies. - Create a regional county alliance to fight drugs, guns and violence. This effort will be supported by a newly created Inter-County Office of Prevention (I-COP).
It would include all county mayors, DAs and police chiefs.
It will compete for local, state and federal grant/research funds.
It will meet monthly to discuss high-crime priorities and strategies to deal with issues like inter-county gun- and drug-trafficking.
The work will be coordinated by the DCCP to free the police commissioner to spend considerable amounts of time dealing with important law-enforcement issues.
Ok, folks. What's next?
Comments (1)
I Think that the san fernando mall needs a theater the closes one is all the way to northridge to far were i live in sylmar
Posted by daniel | July 18, 2007 11:29 AM