The Clean Up Henderson Committee joined the growing list of community organizations endorsing the local Weed and Seed application Wednesday morning, hours before the steering committee for that program decided to expand the targeted zone at the NAACP’s request.
As has been the case with one organization after another in the past month, the Weed and Seed proposal drew questions but no criticism during Wednesday morning’s meeting of the cleanup committee at the police station.
Police Chief Glen Allen explained that the targeted area is rife with abandoned vehicles and abandoned houses, matching the prime concerns of the cleanup group. As the committee has argued throughout its more than two years of existence, those appearance problems coincide with and encourage the heaviest crime rates in the city.
Operation Weed and Seed is a federal program to designate high-crime zones for a grass-roots strategy of cracking down on criminals and addressing the social problems underlying drugs and violence. The highly competitive Department of Justice program doesn’t guarantee any grant money but does push participants to the top of the pile of applicants for a variety of grants for five years and places a recognized city into a network of ideas and encouragement for driving out crime.
The Vance Organization to Implement Community Excellence is serving as the steering committee for the joint Henderson-Vance application. VOICE must submit a letter of intent to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh by the end of this month, then complete a comprehensive application by mid-October.
“We’re trying to put together our best effort,” Allen said, to be one of an expected 31 new Weed and Seed areas designated nationwide in the next 10 months.
Henderson’s Weed and Seed area runs through the eastern side of the city from Harriet & Henderson Yarns’ old North Henderson complex south to Hawkins Drive by L.B. Yancey Elementary School. Pinkston Street defines the eastern border; Chestnut Street marks the western line.
Hearing that Flint Hill is in the center of the area, the president of that neighborhood association, Eugene Burton, was sold on the Weed and Seed idea.
Mary Cottrell made a motion for the cleanup committee to endorse the Weed and Seed application with whatever borders are finally used, and City Council member Elissa Yount seconded the motion. The committee passed the resolution on a unanimous voice vote.
The cleanup committee followed the Vance County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council, VOICE, the Vance County Coalition Against Violence, the Vance Board of Commissioners, the Henderson City Council and the Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce in unconditionally endorsing the Weed and Seed application.
The Vance chapter of the NAACP also offered its support, but with a condition: an expansion of the designated zone down Beckford Drive from the intersection of Chestnut and Garnett streets to encompass the area around Eaton-Johnson Elementary School. Henderson Middle School was inside the zone from the start.
Later Wednesday morning, VOICE took the action the NAACP sought.
Police Lt. Perry Twisdale, who is leading the application process, told a dozen VOICE members at the Aycock Recreation Complex that the NAACP is concerned about crime being pushed out of the neighboring Weed and Seed zone and settling in the area of Eaton-Johnson. Twisdale noted that the Interagency Drug Enforcement Unit raided a couple of houses near the school recently.
No one at VOICE had a reason to oppose the extension of the area, and Allen said that because the population is low and drug offenses are relatively common, the addition of the Eaton-Johnson area could strengthen the Weed and Seed application.
Garry Daeke made the motion to expand the designated area, and Rick Seekins provided the second. VOICE passed the resolution on a unanimous voice vote.
Twisdale said all of the borders are subject to change when Michelle Duhart from the Department of Justice visits next Thursday and Friday to provide free technical assistance with the application. He said the advice might involve expanding or shrinking the area.
The regulations require that the Weed and Seed zone have at least 3,000 residents; the current Henderson area has more than 5,000 but would still be one of the smallest Weed and Seed areas in the nation.
Allen told the cleanup committee that Henderson would be the smallest Weed and Seed city in North Carolina, as well as the only active area in the 1st Congressional District, served by Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-Wilson. Butterfield is visiting Henderson on Monday to tour the proposed Weed and Seed area, and staffers for Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr plan to join the tour.
Cliff Rogers asked during the VOICE meeting whether Henderson would be the smallest in the nation, but no one was certain.
Seekins suggested that Henderson’s size could prove an asset, providing the Justice Department with an opportunity to create a rural model for the Weed and Seed program.
Twisdale and VOICE Secretary Donna Stearns will have a better idea about how Henderson fits after they attend the national Weed and Seed conference in Los Angeles during the week of Aug. 22.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh, which also arranged for the free technical assistance, is paying for Twisdale and Stearns to attend the conference.
“They called us,” Allen said. He and others at the VOICE meeting took the support of the U.S. Attorney’s Office to be a good omen for the Weed and Seed application, although Allen also said it’s common for applicants to fall short on the first try.
Allen said the U.S. Attorney’s Office offered some free advice: “If you don’t get it, come right back and go at it again.”
In the meantime, VOICE continues to collect endorsements for the application, even though Allen said the Justice Department will make its decision based on statistics more than endorsement letters.
Three endorsement requests are scheduled for next week: the Vance Board of Education on Monday, Crimestoppers on Wednesday and the Vance Economic Development Commission on Friday.
Other organizations being approached for their support include neighborhood watch groups, the Franklin-Granville-Vance Partnership for Children, the local Ministerial Alliance, the Five County Mental Health Authority, the county Department of Social Services, the committee working to bring a Boys & Girls Club to Henderson, and the being-formed Henderson-Vance Economic Partnership.
“Nobody’s jumped up and said, ‘No, we don’t want to do this,’ ” Twisdale said.