Police Chief Glen Allen has notified the U.S. Attorney’s Office about Henderson’s hope to win a place in the federal Operation Weed and Seed in the fall.
Allen sent a letter to U.S. Attorney Frank Whitney in Raleigh on April 8 and has followed up by talking to Donald Connelly, the law enforcement coordinator in Whitney’s office.
“Henderson and Vance County have suffered greatly over the past decade from undesired rates of crime, poverty, unemployment, and a variety of socio-economic problems,” Allen wrote.
“We are challenged on all fronts with trying to improve the quality of life in our community, which is badly in need of resources to help us start to repair our neighborhoods and heal our collective wounds.”
That federal agency is ready to help Henderson in any way it needs to complete the Weed and Seed application for the Sept. 15 deadline, Allen said.
“One way or another, we’re going to get an application in,” City Manager Eric Williams promised the Vance Organization to Implement Community Excellence at its meeting Wednesday.
Members of VOICE and the Vance County Coalition Against Violence, particularly Marolyn Rasheed, have pushed for Henderson to pursue the Weed and Seed designation.
Weed and Seed falls under the Justice Department’s Community Capacity Development Office.
“Weed and Seed funding recipients should carefully plan to invest those funds for maximum impact in the designated neighborhoods,” the CCDO director, Nelson Hernandez, wrote in a cover letter for the Weed and Seed application materials last month. “The funds you receive under the Weed and Seed program will never provide for all of the public safety- and community development-related needs of your sites. However, we encourage you to use the Weed and Seed application and planning process to work with your Steering Committee and coalition partners to improve collaboration, leverage other available federal, state, and local resources, and then fill gaps in public safety-related needs.”
But Operation Weed and Seed is about more than money. It’s about creating a communitywide approach to fighting violent crime, drug abuse and gang activity in designated neighborhoods covering anywhere from a few blocks to a few square miles.
The “weeding out” part refers to law enforcement and prosecutors working together to drive out crime and drug abuse; the “seeding” covers an influx of services to prevent and treat problems and revitalize the neighborhood. Community policing serves as the bridge between the two efforts.
Those goals align with the objectives of the Coalition Against Violence and VOICE, as well as the Clean Up Henderson Committee’s increasing focus on replacing abandoned houses with new homeownership in blighted areas.
Gaining official recognition as a Weed and Seed site would allow Henderson to apply for $175,000 a year from the Department of Justice; at least half that grant would have to be spent on the weeding and community policing. The city also would have a better chance at winning other grants.
“If you have that designation, it ratchets up your ability to go after other things,” Williams said.
Among North Carolina cities in the program, the latest addition is High Point, and Statesville is awaiting final approval of its application.
“It’s a community application,” not just a police effort, Allen said. He hopes VOICE will serve as the bond for organizations to work on the application.
The application must specify the targeted neighborhood and must designate a “safe haven” — a “multiservice center where a variety of youth and adult services are coordinated in a highly visible, accessible facility that is secure against crime and illegal drug activity.”
The prospect of such a haven alone has brought favorable comments from Coalition Against Violence members.
“We need support from the grass-roots community groups,” Allen said.
In his April 8 letter to Whitney, Allen said he was writing on behalf of VOICE and as a “very concerned” chief of police. “We believe our community is ideally suited for Operation Weed and Seed, and we are ready to implement a multi-agency strategy.”