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Local Government & Politics
Newport News City Council agrees gun violence is a problem, disagrees on what to do
By Jessica Nolte
Daily Press |
At a Tuesday meeting, city staff proposed using $125,000 from a state grant to give to qualified community-based organizations, with the city matching or exceeding the money.
The request: give $200,000 within 30 days to community-based organizations fighting gun violence in Newport News.
The plan: an approximately seven-month process that will include a study conducted by Christopher Newport University before distributing the money.
The Newport News City Council members agree that something needs to be done to address gun violence in the city, but Councilman David Jenkins drew criticism from fellow members for introducing his proposals at the regular session.
Jenkins asked fellow council members at the Dec. 14 meeting to allocate $200,000 of pandemic relief money for the community organizations.
"Gun violence is time-sensitive," Jenkins said. "It's not one of those things we can wait six months or a year to figure out."
Several members of the council expressed displeasure with Jenkins for bringing his motion to the regular session rather than the lower-profile work session, where proposals can be discussed by the council before they're voted on. The council voted to wait until it could discuss the proposal at its next work session.
But Jenkins' initial proposal to use America Rescue Plant Act funds and make the money available immediately wasn't talked about at the meeting. Instead, Assistant City Manager Alan Archer told the council Tuesday that the city had $125,000 from a state grant to give to qualified organizations with strategies to reduce gun violence. He said the city plans to match or exceed the grant money.
The council will spend an additional $25,000 from the state grant to conduct a study of gun violence in the community in partnership with the CNU Center for Crime, Equity and Justice Research and Policy.
The CNU research center, which launched in the fall, plans to conduct the survey to gain a better understanding of concerns around safety, root causes and effects of violence in the community, Archer said.
While this isn't the first time the city has done studies on gun violence, City Manager Cindy Rohlf says the data changes and much of the information the city has is six or seven years old.
In the plan presented by the city manager's office Tuesday afternoon, the city would solicit grant applications in June and announce who will be receiving funds in July.
The city is looking for organizations that offer solutions such as education, employment and housing services for people at high risk for violence, and mentoring and mental health support for those who are affected by gun violence.
Council and citizens from about half a dozen community groups praised the conversations that happened during the work session and public comment period.
Jenkins, however, said at the meeting that night that his original proposal — the immediate $200,000 — still hadn't been addressed.
He moved, for a second time, to create the $200,000 grant program within the next month. Councilman Marcellus Harris supported the motion but took issue with Jenkins' choice to bring the motion up during the meeting rather than at the work session.
Mayor McKinley Price accused Jenkins of grandstanding, and said the council could not just hand over the money because it has a responsibility to be careful with funds and how they're dispersed.
"I have mixed feelings — I was very happy in the work session — it was a very good discussion about gun violence prevention," said Ruth Winters, a volunteer with the Virginia chapter of Moms Demand Action, which fights for public safety measures to prevent gun violence.
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She commended the city manager's office for understanding that gun violence is a public health issue and that community groups are instrumental in the fight against gun violence but said she was discouraged to see the council vote down Jenkins' proposal to provide additional funding using the ARPA dollars.
Adrian Cook, founder of Let Our Voices Empower, also found the work session conversation to be encouraging but was disappointed to see that everyone in the council "didn't seem to be on the same page."
Cook told the Daily Press he has a job, so he does mentorships and other work to reduce gun violence in his spare time and relies on his own money for his efforts.
"Funding would allow us to do this on a more full-time basis and to reach more kids by being able to employ more people to do the work that we're doing," Cook said.
Jessica Nolte, 757-912-1675, jnolte@dailypress.com
Jessica Nolte
Jessica Nolte is a breaking news reporter for the Daily Press. She graduated from VCU in 2017 and worked as an outreach and social media specialist before joining the paper in June 2018.
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