May 2013
$7.6 Million Oakland Youth Center May Not Open Due To Budget
OAKLAND (KPIX 5) – A $7.6 million youth center five years in the making may close before it has a chance to open. While the West Oakland facility is almost finished, the city is having problems finding the money to run it.
The West Oakland Youth Center, which was built almost entirely with public funds, is supposed to open in the fall. But the City of Oakland is unable to come up with the $190,000 needed to run the center, or the $150,000 needed to staff the Digital Arts and Culinary Academy for teens in East Oakland.
“We’re talking about $340,000 for both programs combined out of a $1 billion budget. You can’t tell me that we can’t find $340,000 for our kids,” said Desley Brooks of the Oakland city Council.
“Make no mistake about it we are going to spend money on these kids. We will either spend it in a proactive way, through youth centers and positive programming,” McElhaney-Gibson said. “Or we will spend the money on arresting them, incarcerating them, putting them in juvenile hall or God forbid to treat them in emergency rooms because they’ve fallen victim to violence.”
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/05/31/7-6-million-oakland-youth-center-may-not-open-due-to-budget/
June 2013
Police budget jeopardizes West Oakland Youth Center
City of Oakland’s twisted priorities could put its youth in jeopardy. News broke that the West Oakland Youth Center—a project five years in the making and developed by youth and grassroots organizers—may not open due to lack of funding to operate the center and staff its programs. The Mayor’s budget proposal assumes that Oakland cannot absorb these operating costs, amounting to roughly $340,000, while the city has had no problem throwing good money after bad in support of policing consultants and policies that continue to fail Oakland. According to Councilperson Desley Brooks, “We’re talking about $340,000 for both programs combined out of a $1 billion budget. You can’t tell me that we can’t find $340,000 for our kids.”
Even as investments in policing continue to increase (totaling more than half of general fund expenditures), Oakland can’t seem to find less than one third of one percent of its budget to invest in safe spaces and quality programming for its youth.
According the KPIX news reporting on the issue, the Mayor’s budget “sacrifices costs for both youth programs [slated for the West Oakland Youth Center] in favor of putting more cops on the streets.” These trade-offs should not surprise us.
https://stoptheinjunction.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/police-budget-jeopardizes-west-oakland-youth-center/
