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| Writing Today's Entry Oct 17 |
Of the about the program $824,000has received over the past five years, $412,000, or half, has gone to the police department, the so-called "weed" funding, officials said. That money has funded bike patrols of targeted areas and to help police improve relations with the community.Only about 10% of the total funding goes to pay for artist salaries. This is the part that Millville First objects to the most. This is in keeping with its intent to damage then destroy the Millville Arts District. The article states that ArtWorks program was targeted by Millvile First and that this program got $30,000. Millville First states more should have been spent on Law Enforcement. Well, this federally funded program is call Weed and Seed. They do not seem to get the fact that the 1. This is not using any city tax money and 2. Its purpose is to Weed out Crime and lay the Seeds for an improved community.
The fact that Millville First is not looking at the expenditures in a fair and objective manner shows its just a political witch-hunt to badger and waste city manpower with OPRA requestes.
"To look at a grant for nine or 10 months out of five years and to say the grant hasn't been a success demonstrates what little analysis they've done and that they already had their conclusion set."Yes, I would agree of the $824,000 that the grant has given $30,000 is a small slice. I would suggest that Millille First stick to its intent of saving taxpayer money and not going after the Arts District. I mean now there are no events and block partiessince the city had to cut them. Are they not happy with their success in that endeavor??
Millville First said it's been studying the Weed and Seed program since February 2009. The group has filed 26 Open Public Records Act requests this year, many of them requesting information on Weed and Seed and Nicklus.
Nicklus said no matter what critics allege, the program has made a difference.
"You can take numbers and you can twist them anyway you want," she said. "I have seen kids who have followed ArtWorks through the years, and it has made a tremendous impact in their lives. That's just a small part of the things we do."
1 comment:
Weed and Seed has been great in our community. Yes, art is part of the program, getting kids involved in art projects (instead of who knows what) and sprucing up the community at the same time.
It has been shown time and time again that the cost of prevention (through things like arts intervention, community building, and after-school programming) is way cheaper than the after-the-fact law enforcement that your Millville First friends are so fond of.
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