VOICE eyes North Henderson for Weed and Seed


The Vance Organization to Implement Community Excellence started looking at maps Wednesday in planning for its Operation Weed and Seed application to the U.S. Department of Justice, and the first candidate for the program doesn’t involve Flint Hill or Orange Street.

Instead, Henderson City Manager Eric Williams turned VOICE’s attention to a Ward 4 region in the northeast that extends beyond the city limits in the area of the former Harriet & Henderson Yarns complex on Main Street.

It’s a region bordered on the west by Garnett Street and on the south by Andrews Avenue, stretching north to the city limits and reaching as far east as Pinkston Street while encompassing the North Henderson ball fields and the old mill neighborhood.

Mayor Clem Seifert’s housing task force has identified that zone as the potential North Henderson Redevelopment Area, where the city could combine local, state and federal programs to improve housing, enhance infrastructure, develop recreation, encourage business and decrease crime. Those latter goals overlap with the Weed and Seed program, which takes a community approach to driving out drugs and violence and replacing such problems with recreation, business development and more.

Weed and Seed has emerged as VOICE’s predominant issue. The federal program gives designated areas a good shot at Weed and Seed-specific funding and priority for other federal grants. VOICE has barely moved past the information-gathering stage, but Williams, who serves as the group’s chairman, said he soon will appoint a subcommittee to work on the application. The group, which is filling the role of the required steering committee for the program, must submit a letter of intent to the U.S. attorney by Aug. 31 and must deliver the completed application by Oct. 15.

The redevelopment project, meanwhile, already has detailed, color-coded maps of the full area and of the mill neighborhood centered on David Street, where the city has applied for Community Development Block Grant revitalization money to rehabilitate or replace houses, add a park and make infrastructure improvements. Those maps gave VOICE something to look at and talk about Wednesday.

The redevelopment project and the Weed and Seed proposal are in the preliminary stages. The groups working on the separate plans have not met, and Williams emphasized that the North Henderson area is just one possibility.

Still, no one at VOICE’s meeting objected to North Henderson as the possible home of Weed and Seed. Its virtues include land inside and outside the city, a racially diverse population, a range of housing levels, subsidized housing at Cedarhurst and Beacon Light, commercial corridors, recreation sites, and candidates for a “safe haven” community center, including the Disabled American Veterans building if the local chapter can’t overcome its financial problems. No schools are in the redevelopment zone, but a high school, both middle schools and two elementary schools are just blocks away.

“This brings it all together,” Williams said. “It kind of makes sense to me.”

He said he will take the lead in getting population data for the area. Weed and Seed requires an area with a minimum of 3,000 residents.

In an interview later, Seifert said he doubts the redevelopment zone has enough people. He reasoned that in a city of slightly more than 16,000 people, each of the four wards should have about 4,000 residents, and the identified zone has only a piece of a ward.

VOICE could extend the Weed and Seed district’s borders to bring in enough people in contiguous areas.

The anti-crime coalition also must take into account the crime rate for whatever zone it nominates for the Weed and Seed program.

“Crime statistics will be a major issue on getting recognized” by the federal government, Police Chief Glen Allen said. He said the city needs “to paint the worst possible picture” to win the competitive Weed and Seed designation.

The chief said property crimes aren’t relevant for Weed and Seed. The Department of Justice wants to know about violent incidents, such as murder, rape and aggravated assault, and drug crimes.

Dollie Burwell, who heads Congressman G.K. Butterfield’s district office in Weldon, said it should help to have the Weed and Seed area overlap the redevelopment zone because the city could show that it was trying to do something big. Allen said the overlap would be a good thing, but he’s not sure it would help the application.

The Police Department is pursuing free federal technical assistance in preparing the application. VOICE member Cliff Rogers suggested gathering population and crime information on the redevelopment zone and areas immediately to the north and south, then deferring to the technical adviser on where to draw the Weed and Seed lines.

On a motion from Rogers that was seconded by Garry Daeke, VOICE also agreed to arrange with the Vance County Coalition Against Violence and the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council to make joint appearances before the City Council, the county Board of Commissioners and the county Board of Education in late July or August to seek the governing bodies’ official support for the Weed and Seed application.

The city and county ultimately could be asked for funding for a Weed and Seed coordinator, which is a full-time job.

“We have to have a coordinator, that’s a fact,” Williams said. He said initially he might try to have people from a couple of city departments share the coordinator’s duties.

Rogers said the position should have city and county funding, and Williams said that perhaps the county could designate Alcoholic Beverage Control Board revenues, only 15 percent of which go to the city.

Police Lt. Perry Twisdale, who was involved in Henderson’s flirtation with Weed and Seed in 1998-99, said the Justice Department doesn’t care who pays for the coordinator, as long as that person answers directly to the steering committee.

To prepare for the Weed and Seed application, Twisdale, Williams and several others from Henderson plan to attend a statewide Weed and Seed meeting in Durham on June 13 to network and gather ideas. ringtone 4 free3 ringtones freetop 10 ringtonesfor free 3 ringtonesfree ringtones 1net free 10 ringtoneadd free ringtone siteringtone 24 24 ringtone Map