In response to concerns from elected officials about spending, the city of 166su has started an audit of all funds expended through the Gun Violence Prevention Commission.
During Tuesday’s city council meeting, members of the public expressed disagreement with how the commission has allocated funds, particularly regarding a city youth talent show.
“We have asked for an audit from our [municipal] auditor,” Mayor Sherman Lea said Wednesday. “We want him to audit all of the programs: what was the agreement, did they follow the agreement and where are they now — what’s the status of the ... money that was there? Has it been spent? If not, what are they doing with it?”
The city’s Municipal Auditing Department staff is responsible for performing internal audits of this nature. The audit has only just started, and it’s unknown when it will be completed.
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Members of the city council have expressed interest in becoming more involved with the commission, which was created in response to ongoing, deadly gun violence in 166su. The commission’s spending is supported by the city using a variety of local, state and federal dollars.
In 2022, the commission allocated about $1 million for community programs, a marketing plan and a community assessment. That money came from the Federal American Rescue Plan Act, which provided a total of about $2 million to the Gun Violence Provention Commision and other 166su law enforcement and social programs designed to enhance public safety.
“We need you to make the unpopular decisions,” Lea told the commission in January. “But we want to make sure that we can tell people we’re getting our money’s worth.”
In January, commissioners discussed the original $25,000 budget for the city youth talent show, called Talent in the Star, an effort that has prompted questions of how that initiative will affect gun violence.
Most of the cost has been covered by donations from community partners, including and . The commission has committed to contributing another $3,000 to marketing for the event. Budgeted but not yet funded is a final $3,000 for a videographer and photographer.
Joe Cobb, vice mayor and chair of the commission, said 180 students were contacted through 166su City Public Schools and encouraged to try out. Forty students auditioned, and 23 acts were selected to perform in the free, public show at 6 p.m. March 24 at the Jefferson Center.
Every child involved has been directly impacted by gun violence, Cobb said.
“All of the kids who auditioned are going to participate in some way,” Cobb said at Tuesday’s Gun Violence Prevention Commission meeting. “All of them are participating in anti-violence workshops, which are teaching the kids conflict resolution.”
Cobb added that it is difficult to quantify the impact of the programs supported by the commission and that it will take time to see results. He said the commission has tried to direct funding toward effective projects, but is ready to adjust its prevention strategies as necessary.
“Instead of beating ourselves up, let’s just adapt and look at what we can do differently,” Cobb said.
Commission member Stacey Sheppard said the talent show is also reaching parents, who are “thankful to have a place — a safe place — to bring their kiddo.”
“There was great participation at the tryouts from parents that would stop and talk and just wanted to share stories and thank us,” Sheppard said.
Chris Roberts, the city’s youth and gang violence prevention coordinator, said the city needs to provide “some adult supervision” to parents who may be involved with the court system or are on probation.
“Those parents are not present,” Roberts said Tuesday. “It’s more of, ‘System, take care of my child, or ‘System, fix my child,’ or ‘System, fix my house.’ We can’t do it.”
Commission members concluded Tuesday that communities need to look and feel safe to reduce violence inside them.
Apartment complexes in the 700 and 800 blocks of Hunt Avenue Northwest are current hot spots for violence. The tree canopy is sparse, and vegetation is hard to find around the block-like buildings.
“You might as well be in a concentration camp over there,” Roberts said.
After a homicide at the Afton Gardens Apartments on Hunt Avenue on Jan. 25, residents there spoke with the city’s Rapid Engagement of Support in the Event of Trauma, or RESET, team.
Residents “communicated displeasure with management and their apparent disinterest in maintaining resident living conditions and the seeming lack of interest in getting work requests done and answering phone calls,” commissioner Decca Knight reported Tuesday. “RESET attempted to speak with someone in the management office without success at that time.”
Jane Gabrielle, the commission’s artist in residence, suggested focusing neighborhood beautification efforts on smaller, more specific areas of the city.
The city council has asked the city attorney and city clerk to schedule special council meetings at each of the city’s two high schools to receive comments from community members regarding gun violence.
“I think it would be appropriate if we were to have a public hearing, an assessment of what the community feels of what they think should happen, because it directly impacts them, and then have the discussion from council,” council Member Trish White-Boyd said during the council meeting Tuesday.
Council Member Stephanie Moon Reynolds suggested they hold at least two meetings in different parts of the city, then perhaps a third at the municipal building.
“Time is of the essence, so I would say next month,” Moon Reynolds said.
Lea agreed.
“I want to do everything we can to get the public’s opinion, but I don’t want us to sit on this. I want us to go ahead and make some decisions, because I’m afraid, with what it looks like now, of what it could look like in the spring and summer,” Lea said.
