FEELGOODISM AT WORK ON THE CITY COUNCIL--D.A.R.E. WE SAY IT?
Remember all the hype you heard for years about the DARE program?
All the swells and the suits trotted out their bonafides and told the peons that this was a great program and that milk and honey was going to be the result.
Here's one of the actual phrases used to promote that program: "The DARE program gives kids the life skills they need to avoid involvement with drugs, gangs, and violence."
Makes you all warm and fuzzy, right? Hey, what could be wrong with a program that will help kids avoid drugs, gangs and violence?
Just one thing. It didn't work.
It was based on squishy liberal voodoo psychology and sociology cooked up by the usual "hey kids let's put on a play in my uncle's barn" crew, not on hard facts and reality.
Many cities--including Costa Mesa--have now completely abandoned DARE because it's an abject failure. It didn't do what it said it would do. All it did was drain tax money into a feel good program run by moist eyed charity types and their pals.
At the City Council study session yesterday (3/13), we had a sense of deju vu as Son of DARE was presented to the City Council. This one is called the "Gang Initiative." Sounds tough through and through. It's not. You can name your pet hamster "Godzilla," but it's still a hamster.
Even worse, in practice, the Gang Initiative may actually hurt Costa Mesa's efforts to turn suspected illegal aliens over to the ICE agent as libs will probably use the program to renew their calls to go soft on illegal alien criminals in order to "gain trust with the community so the Gang Initiative will work."
What the Gang Initiative does, in part, is re-empower some of the same liberal establishment types who pushed DARE and similar liberal boondoggles, and who tried to defeat Mansoor/Leece in the last election.
Now, dear reader, please excuse us for ping ponging a bit, but notwithstanding our above take on the Gang Initiative, we don't want to be too harsh about this plan because at least it's an attempt to convince citizens that the city is doing something, and the enforcement parts of it seem pretty good.
Maybe the Councilmembers can take a harder look at this proposal and ask some meaningful questions and fashion something that will be good. So, we're not suggesting that the Gang Initiative is all bad. We are, however, saying that it needs to be picked apart and some vague or DARE type aspects need to be nailed down or eliminated.
To be completely frank, the Gang Initiative, as it sits right now, is a good example of how to try to push through things you know won't be approved by attaching them to things that you know will be approved. It's sort of a local version of how Senators and Congressmen work. "Initiative to land a man on the moon? Great. Let's just make it a Comprehensive Moon Bill by adding on this provision to provide hay for cows in my state."
As you are probably aware, the new buzz word nationally and locally is "comprehensive." And we see it used here as the Gang Initiative puts together iffy social programs with reasonable enforcement efforts, mixes them up a bit, throws in the word comprehensive and then asks the City Council to swallow the whole thing and not look at its constituent parts.
The CM PRESS believes that the City Council should pick apart the Gang Initiative so that we end up with the best possible bang for our buck and not just end up with a recycled DARE program.
In this regard, and to be clear, we believe the enforcement parts of the program, as we understand them, are desirable and should be accepted. They look pretty solid and well thought out to us.
We have a problem, however, when the program then includes such things as (from the report): "Project ASK with the NMUSD" and; "Expand public education efforts through...Town Hall meetings, etc." We're especially concerned about that toss away "etc." which is far too broad. It may, for example, get us into providing English lessons, day care, a new job center, and you name it. And, we're not kidding about this. Could it be that some of those involved with this "comprehensive" plan are in favor of those things and will be taking care of the day to day matters without further public review?
We believe that if the Council accepts this program as presented without nailing down loose ends, it could end up hurting Costa Mesa.
In addition, we think that this Gang Initiative--both the good and bad parts--will ultimately fail, because it doesn't address the root causes of our problems. And, unless it does address the root causes, it's mostly duck and cover and rearrange the deck chairs stuff. However (we ping pong again), the police can only do so much.
Our problems in Costa Mesa are not for lack of proper police work. We don't have a high crime rate and increasing numbers of gangs because the cops aren't doing what they're supposed to do.
The reason we have these problems is because successive City Councils have failed to improve our city. They've left us a mess and now the current crop of co-opted politicians are asking the police department to clean it up while not only not preventing the mess from continuing, but, in our view, giving up control of the social aspects of this program to forces that have put us where we are today--which is to say--in a position where we need this program. Sound a little circular? It is.
According to the officers who presented this proposal to the City Council yesterday, Costa Mesa only had four gangs ten years ago and now we have seven.
Not one of the Councilmembers at the study session bothered to ask why the number increased.
Not one asked the ethnic makeup of the gangs.
Not one asked if they're composed of illegal aliens and/or the children of illegal aliens.
Not one asked to see a push-pin map of where gang members actually live in the city.
Not one asked to see a push-pin map showing gang crime hotspots.
Come on, City Council. Citizens want you to do something, but they want you to think it through and not be stampeded into doing something that may not work, may cost a lot of money, and which may actually do more harm than good.
Don't buy into this "comprehensive"approach. That's just a PR tactic. Take a cafeteria approach. Pick the things that are good and leave anything that is doubtful or vague behind.
And, remember, there really is no direct link between the enforcement and social aspects of this program. They're really separate things just thrown together because some know you may buy the social aspects when they're mixed up with the enforcement aspects.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
