The Search for Process

With so many deceptive appearances along the way, the latest news about Boston’s search for a new superintendent of schools might be hard to hard to accept at face value. Last year, there was the appearance that the search committee’s finalists included Rochester superintendent Dr. Manuel Rivera. Then there was the denial. Later came his selection by the search committee, only to be clouded over by one more contradiction about his having been a finalist, not to mention the lingering uncertainty over the signing of a contract. Even when Dr. Rivera banished that uncertainty, there were new uncertainties—about why he decided to take another job, and whether the reason had anything to do with Boston’s search committee, especially its co-chair at the time, Dr. Elizabeth Reilinger. For a while, even Mayor Thomas Menino couldn’t get a straight answer because Rivera didn’t return his phone call.

One lesson drawn from the episode with Rivera is that a layer of confidentiality hides pitfalls. That’s why advocates and City Councilors have been making a new push for an open search process. They did that again last night, at a hearing by the Council’s Committee on Education. But just as important is what the advocates did not do: openly attack the Mayor and leaders of the search committee. Before last night's hearing, members of Community Partners had a chance to talk about the search process concerns with the mayor. After all, one other lesson that could be drawn about Rivera episode is that even the public announcement of his selection was no guarantee that he’d take the job.

In a prepared statement from the School Dept., leaders of the search committee said the process “would remain confidential throughout in order to recruit a top-notch leader.” The reason: “Increasingly across the country, school districts are moving towards confidentiality in the search process as a means of attracting highly qualified candidates who are unable to participate in an open process that creates vulnerability in their current positions.” The only wiggle room was left in the prepared statement by the co-chair of the committee, Cleve Killingsworth: “The committee will look for meaningful ways to involve the community in this important process without compromising the confidentiality of the candidates.”

At the hearing, advocates acting in concert as “Community Partners for a New Superintendent” expressed their ideas about what meaningful should mean. Most agreed the search process should go public once the committee comes up with finalists, despite concerns over the risk to a candidate’s current job. The assistant director of the Boston Parent Organizing Network, Myriam Ortíz, said, “We also believe the person has to be committed enough to take that risk of an open process.”

One change in the process is the addition of new members to the search committee: the executive director of the Grove Hall youth violence prevention program, Project RIGHT, Jorge Martínez, and the director of UMass. Boston’s Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development, Mirén Uriarte. The new co-chair of the committee is the pastor of Charles Street AME Church and School Committee member, Rev. Gregory Groover. And it was the make-up of the search committee that won praise in the prepared statement from the coordinator of the Latino Education Action Network at Mass. Advodactes for Children, Samuel Hurtado: “We at Community Partners for a New Superintendent appreciate that the Mayor and the School committee have appointed strong committee representatives whom we trust, who will stand up for our interests, and who we can hold accountable.”

That wasn’t good enough for the chair of the City Council Committee on Education, Chuck Turner. “A good (search) committee,” he said, “is no replacement for a good public process.”

Councilor Sam Yoon said getting the best possible superintendent was “absolutely compatible” with an open search process. And Councilor Michael Flaherty said candidates for superintendent “should expect at some point their name will be public and there will be public vetting.”

One of the few hesitations was from Council President Maureen Feeney, who observed that candidates from smaller school systems “may be very reluctant to place their careers on the line to say they are looking elsewhere.”

And that possibility might also trouble supporters of open process for candidates who become finalists. Even Hurtado mentioned the “need for confidentiality to attract candidates,” at least before getting to a final round. After almost six months of a school year without a new long-term superintendent lined up, and with other top-level positions in the School Dept. on hold, there's growing pressure to attract quality candidates who might be hard to find. For now, that means pressure to offer confidentiality. If the search yields more than one promising candidate, there could be more pressure to run the risk of open competition among finalists. If the process were to change accordingly, it would be just one more proof that picking a superintendent is less about sticking to formula than adaptation.

But, as last night’s hearing got under way, Councilors found themselves on the other side of public process, learning about the reconstituted search committee from an article on boston.com.
If that wasn’t enough, the School Committee members they wanted to ask about the search didn’t show up. Turner said even the mayor’s education advisor failed to give him a heads-up about the latest on the search process. He called it a show of disrespect by the mayor.

“What that says in terms of how he sees us as a Council,” said Turner, “is really amazing.”

Or is it? Right after Rivera backed out, this was the same council whose members publicly called for Reilinger to resign from her other position as chair of the Boston School Committee. It's hard to say how much--or how little--those councilors contributed to Reilinger's decision to step down from being co-chair of the search committee. To judge from last night, they had trouble appearing influential, passing out copies of the story from boston.com, then struggling to shut off an alarm bell so they could start hearing testimony.

Link: hearing testimony from Black Educators' Alliance of Mass.

City Workers and City Limits

The question of a residency requirement for city workers is heating up once again. A preliminary contract agreement with a city union representing 1,500 workers—the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Council 93—would allow a cut-off of the requirement after 10 years on the job. The provision is part of a trade-off that brings some gains to management, but also strong disagreement among elected officials and Boston residents.

There have been two periods when the push for a residency requirement was the strongest, in the mid-1970’s and 1993. During both of these times, there were slumps in the Boston housing market, and the exodus of residents from the city (signaled by "for sale" signs) was attracting more notice. Among those supporting a reinvigorated requirement in 1993 were two officials who started out as district City Councilors: Maureen Feeney and Thomas Menino. Fourteen years later, as a fourth-term mayor, Menino has decided to give way on residency, at least for some concessions to management—in this case a higher contribution by employees for health insurance and closer monitoring of their city vehicles.

Supporters of the residency requirement still give it credit for keeping city employees in the neighborhoods who might otherwise have moved out. They say this also means having more city workers with a stake in the neighborhoods and a better understanding of their concerns. Though many city workers are still exempt from the requirement, supporters say their number has been dwindling. The requirement has also been defended as a job opportunity for Boston residents and, in all likelihood, one reason for the growing racial diversity of the city’s workforce. But even a 10-year requirement would still mean new job openings having to be filled by Boston residents.

Perhaps the single most dramatic change in the residency debate since 1993 concerns Boston’s housing market. Instead of using the Boston Public Schools as a reason to move out of the city, some union leaders have lately been talking more about the city’s housing costs. Despite the downturn in housing markets throughout much of the country over the last two years, there has still been little talk about flight from the city alone (as opposed to flight from the cost of living in Massachusetts), and the fall-off in housing prices still lags behind the slowdown in sales. Said the president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Samuel R. Tyler, "We're coming to a point where the mayor has finally realized that the cost of living in Boston is such a big issue with the unions that it would bring about a change in the cost of health care for the city."

A rollback on the residency requirement for one union doesn’t change a whole city’s population very much by itself, but there’s reason to see the agreement with AFSCME as a precedent. Tyler expects more unions will push for similar changes to the residency requirement, maybe even with shorter time limits. But, even with more retreats on residency, he questions whether there will be any significant change in the commitment of city workers or in Boston's population, especially given their limited numbers. "It's not as if city employees make that much of a difference as far as stability or a strong middle class," he said. Easier to prove by numbers is the effect of residency on electoral politics: more workers living in Boston means more clout for unions and for their political allies.

In a statement released February 21, Mayor Menino said: “Boston still maintains the strongest residency requirement in the state. Our neighborhoods and schools are far better now than they were back in ’93, when I became mayor, and I believe that after living and working in our city for 10 years, most people wouldn’t want to leave.”

On the mayor’s side of the argument, one could note the appeal of certain district and charter schools and, arguably, a growing acceptance of racial diversity. But it’s also possible to view a retreat on the residency requirement as a threat for neighborhoods beset with other challenges. Among those neighborhoods are parts of Dorchester represented by City Council President Maureen Feeney, where a fairly large Catholic population has been adjusting to the consolidation of parishes and the likely consolidation of parish schools.

In a statement from her office the same day, Feeney said: "This is a sad day for Boston. The residency requirement has brought great and tangible benefit to all of our neighborhoods. Weakening residency is a step in the wrong direction and I am outraged that the Mayor would promote a deal that would allow city employees to flee our neighborhoods. The people who serve our city should have a personal investment in our city's future.”

But Tyler argues the retreat on residency is a price that might have to be paid for attracting employees in at least some positions, especially given the dim prospects of an increase in state aid. "Residency," he said, "has been a factor in the city not having been able to recruit the people that they would like at all times."

Getting to Yes Without a Meeting

In a second court battle over the open meeting law, the winner was the Boston City Council. But the ruling issued Monday by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Thomas E. Connolly has made for some head-scratching.

As in a previous court battle, the Council was being sued by three citizen activists—Kathleen Devine, Shirley Kressel, and Kevin McCrea (who also ran for Council two years ago). This time the dispute was about how the Council approved a package of pay raises. What the Council passed as an ordinance on May 3 of 2006 was an amended version of recommendations by the Compensation Advisory Board.

When legislative bodies vote on raises, especially if this includes raises for themselves, there’s potential for squirming. Last year, that was even more the case, though not necessarily due to the size of the compensation. With little controversy, the Council had adopted a pay raise package four years earlier—based on recommendations from the same board and the same chairman, Lawrence S. DiCara. A former City Councilor, DiCara has done legal work for clients with projects needing city approval since at least the 1980’s. What made his legal work more difficult to ignore this time around was that the recommendations last year came out shortly after he represented a project that needed approval directly from the City Council.

If it had not been for that legal work, the Council’s Government Operations Committee probably would have held a public hearing on the compensation package on April 21. But the committee chair at the time, Maureen Feeney, said questions from a reporter about possible conflict of interest led her to call off the hearing on short notice. Once the she was assured there was no legal obstacle to moving ahead, Feeney said she set about rescheduling.

But the cancellation led to a deadline problem. Unless the Council acted sooner, the board’s recommendations would take effect automatically on May 8, and what ended up being scheduled wasn't a hearing. To have the Council act on an amended version of the recommendations, Feeney arranged to have them brought to the floor at the last regular Council meeting before the deadline, on May 3.

What’s beyond question is that the Council approved the pay raise ordinance in a public meeting with advance public notice. Judge Connolly wrote this would have been the remedy had there been any lack of openness beforehand. As he noted, you can see the action on the ordinance on the internet—all 6 minutes and 28 seconds of it. And, according to a statement from Feeney, the judge’s ruling validates the Council’s “good conduct” and “hard work.”

What’s still in question is whether the Council gave the public sufficient opportunity to speak. In parts of his ruling, the judge refers to the meeting as a “hearing,” and at one point he wrote the public was properly noticed and given opportunity to speak. Now, public hearings and meetings might be almost the same thing, but there is one important difference for the City Council: a hearing allows the general public to give testimony, while a meeting, like the one held May 3, allows only for debate by councilors themselves.

During that brief debate, Councilor Chuck Turner brought up some objections to the ordinance. One of them was about the lack of a public hearing, something that would normally have taken place before an ordinance comes up for a vote. “At least,” said Turner, “the public should have a right to comment and give their perspective.” No matter how many councilors might say that was their intention all along, the judge notes that on committee matters public hearings are not required.

But how can a committee reporting on an ordinance “favorably” take that collective action without a public session and still avoid violating the open meeting law? First, by avoiding the physical reality of a meeting—that is, percolating enough “concurrence” through staff members so the chair could act for the committee as a courtesy. And, second, by avoiding any communication about the merits of the ordinance. In her proposed rule changes, Feeney, as Council President, wants to make this a standard: that concurrence should mean agreeing only that an item should come up for vote, and not necessarily support for the item itself. This also means an item can emerge only when the door to open comment by the general public has already closed—or that an item can sink in committee without a trace (though not necessarily due to a lack of merit).

So was it acceptable for the process of concurrence on the pay raise ordinance to be off the radar screen partly because there would later be a public vote and debate by the councilors themselves? Or was it because there would also be an opportunity for the general public to speak? Because the ruling almost interchangeably uses the words hearing and meeting, there is some confusion on this point.

Another view is that advance notice of a Council meeting would be enough to trigger some form of public comment, even if not necessarily audible in the Iannella Chamber. After all, legislators of all kinds have been strongly swayed by telephone calls, emails, or a chance encounter in the hallway. As tedious and unpersuasive as testimony in the chamber may be, it is different from other ways of sending a message. One difference is that it can be heard in real time by Council members and other members of the public—and later on archived video. Testimony in this setting also has a leveling effect that’s visible. The chamber, as it were, is a mouthpiece that conspicuously transforms the individual into the citizen. Whether that feels empowering or inhibiting, the setting might be thought of as a clearly marked zone of equality, something that influences legislative process even by its potential. Even if not always required by law, this is a dynamic that can also serve the Council members when they ask for accountability from other officials or private citizens. But, no matter how much councilors might want to apply that dynamic to thorny matters such as pay raises, the court decision lays down the road map for another way out.

Class Size Matters

To judge by the ads on cable television, the main dispute in contract talks between the Boston School Committee and the Boston Teachers Union is over class size. The School Committee does want to allow for an increase in class size in more classrooms. But the Boston Municipal Research Bureau says the contract provision has recently been revised so that the change would only be allowed in 150 classrooms—out of more than 13,000. The ads say the contract provision would “cram more students into every classroom”—a statement the Research Bureau calls “highly exaggerated.” The Bureau says the provision allows the School Dept. to be cost effective in a limited number of cases when the alternative would be to pay for adding another classroom.

The class size provision might also reflect the increasing pressure on enrollment by trimming the number of students in under-performing schools. There is agreement on both sides to increase pay for teachers in those schools, while requiring a longer day. More difficult to settle is how much more flexibility in those schools administrators will have to bring in teachers or nudge them out. Superintendent Michael Contompasis wants to have that increased flexibility in as many as 20 under-performing schools. Does the flexibility, as BTU President Richard Stutman says, mean more teachers who simply “go along” with administrators, or does it mean more teachers who perform better and make everyone look good?

How good the teachers look also depends on their performance evaluations. The School Committee wants to make changes in the evaluation mechanism. Can these changes affect performance in ways that narrow the achievement gaps? Along with providing accountability for test scores, could the mechanism address other concerns raised by parents and students: for example, making schools seem more welcoming to the community, or making what’s taught seem more relevant to the world of students, more engaging? On the other hand, teachers would probably have some reason to be concerned about the potential in evaluations for blame-shifting. As the formula for better performance requires more collaboration between teachers and people of other specialties, even from other agencies, accountability can become more tricky.

Also in dispute in the contract talks is how much teachers would contribute to their health insurance. The city wants to increase that contribution by its employees from 10% to 15%, noting that the cost of premiums for employees in the schools has more than doubled since 2001. Officials say, even with the higher contribution, teachers would still do better than many other employees in the public sector, not to mention the private sector. But going up another 5% is also the kind of concession that doesn’t come easily. For quite a while, the Research Bureau has been pushing for another way to rein in the cost of health coverage—through state legislation that would make it easier for local communities to change insurers—and possibly exert more leverage in the health care market.

A debate on the contract between BTU President Richard Stutman and Boston School Superintendent Michael Contompasis has been scheduled for Tuesday, February 13, 6 p.m., at the Grover Cleveland School, 11 Charles Street, Dorchester (across from Fields Corner Station).

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At the School Committee meeting February 7, the superintendent presented budget recommendations, with an overall increase in the next fiscal year of 1.7%. Among the recommendations:

· $4.1 million for 23 more kindergarten classrooms, serving 500 4 year-olds
· $2 million for English Language Learners, covering staff, professional development, materials, and a summer enrichment program
· Creating more K-8 schools (money to continue conversion at 3 schools and begin at 4 others)
· Eight more family and community outreach coordinators (an increase to a total of 25 full-time positions)

Dropout Problem: Solvable or Doomed?

There are the dropouts of Dickensian doom, the gathering threat of the unemployed and the dysfunctional. There are also ordinary teens or young adults thrown off track shortly before graduating from high school, sometimes even after passing the MCAS exam.

Both types of students are getting more attention, thanks to a change of state policy that makes dropouts more difficult to ignore. Under the policy, the state has begun tracking the number of students who fail to finish high school in four years, or who drop out altogether. The figures put more pressure on schools for a problem whose causes run beyond the classroom. But people working on the problem say the figures also produce more clarity, with less confusion over the large number of students who finish high school in five years. At a panel discussion last Friday, sponsored by the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, there were calls for attention, not only to the persistence of the dropout problem, but to the potential for solutions.

The figures released last week by the Mass. Dept. of Education measure students over a course of five years (2002-2006). In urban schools, the four-year graduation rate was only 62%. Another 12% of the students are listed as being “still in school.” That leaves a dropout rate of 22%. For Boston, the graduation rate was 59.1%, with 16.8% still in school. The dropout rate was 20.3%, with 0.6% "permanently excluded."

There are also disparities among the statewide dropout figures themselves: 26% for Hispanic and “Limited English Proficiency” students, 21% for Low-income, 18% for African-American, 9% for white, 8% for Asian, 14% for male, 10% for female.

At Friday’s discussion, Andrew M. Sum, Director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, presented more figures concerning dropouts: what happens to their earning power over time, and the toll on families and taxpayers.

“After you leave 1980, the lifetime earnings of a male dropout in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decline steadily and steeply every decade,” said Sum. “Over that 25-year period, for the average male dropout, the lifetime earnings fell by 30%.”

Not only do they make little money, according to Sum, but many of the dropouts in Massachusetts are simply out of work.

“Only two out of ten teenage dropouts are able to find any type of employment,” he said. “What you have basically is that dropping out of school is the equivalent of economic suicide.”

Sum estimates the employment rate approaches 50% as dropouts reach their early or late twenties, though he says the official numbers, which are higher, also include recent immigrants without high school diplomas.

Then there’s the cost for the rest of society.

“These young men who drop out of school not only face a far more depressed and difficult labor market, but are experiencing every fundamental social, civic, health problem, marriage rate decline, far greater than was true 25 years ago,” said Sum.

“The marriage rate of all male dropouts fell by half in the last 25 years,” he said. “As a result, the number of single-parent families created in the state was far greater than at any time in our history.”

For Sum, the dropout problem in aggregate was like the two needy children—ignorance and want—with whom the Spirit of Christmas Future confronts Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

“Our report,” said Sum, “provides empirical documentation for the spirit’s remarks that, for the average dropout, male and female in this state, economic doom is indeed written on their brow.”


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Emmanuel Allen is a Dropout Recovery Specialist for the Boston Private Industry Council (PIC). Along with having worked in violence prevention programs at the Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester, he has a four-year college degree in computer information systems. But he dropped out of the Jeremiah E. Burke High School at age 17, only to graduate from there at age 21. His definition of a dropout: “a student who’s not in school.”

Based his outreach work with PIC, Allen describes dropouts as more willing to move on with their education than to pick up where they left off. That could mean a few months of work on one or two failing subjects, coupled with holding a job, instead of going back to high school for a full year.

“Most programs are structured in a way where you have to go back for at least a year. They don’t want to come back in year. They’ve started their adult life, you know, many of them have kids, they’re working, they’re doing things, so the traditional school setting doesn’t quite fit back into their lives,” Allen said during the panel discussion last Friday.

Allen says some of the dropouts gather enough self-esteem to return, only to end up back in schools where they had been branded as under-achievers.

“You’ve got to realize how frustrated they become,” he said, “after they’ve built up all this esteem, and that kind of esteem is taken away.”

And research by the Boston School Dept. shows many dropouts want to catch up on their education.

“Nobody talks to dropouts after they leave—nobody,” said PIC’s executive director, Neil Sullivan.

“We can talk kids back into the system in a minute,” he said.

Allen mentioned his experience of making contact with a dropout—repeatedly.

“The student said, ‘When you first called me on the phone, you said you would call me back and I didn’t believe you. But you did call me back, and you continued to call me back, you know, and thanks for that--because of that I’m back in school,’” said Allen. His conclusion: personal contact “is the biggest thing.”

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The next day, at Freedom House in Roxbury, students and adults kept referring to personal contact as a tool in dropout prevention. Their discussion was part of a forum on the racial gap in achievement organized by Community Partners for a New Superintendent.

When asked what would make school a place where students want to be, one student answered, “More teachers who understand us, instead of pushing us to the side.” Another said students “need to feel that things they learn in the classroom are applicable” to the real world. Yet another student said, “We should have after-school programs so we could do our homework, and teachers to help us.”

Students also suggested mentors who could talk to them about their personal problems—“because,” said one student, “a lot of stuff that goes on at home is on our mind during the school day.”

Said Boston School Committee member Marchelle Raynor, “We’ve got to be in a relationship with their families if we’re going to be teaching their children.”

While students and adults in one group at Freedom House were talking about the dropout problem, other groups were talking about the effect of violence and the difficulties of students with learning disabilities and limited English proficiency.

At the panel discussion Friday, Sullivan spoke about early response to the most predictable dropouts--typically students with attendance problems or above normal age for their grade level. He said the remedies would have to include work with agencies outside the school system, including the Division of Youth Services, and getting “mental health out of the closet.”

“Education is not the problem,” he said. “Education is the solution.”

Among parents and students in the circle at Freedom House, education was still part of the problem. When the group’s facilitator summed up the discussion for Boston School Superintendent Michael Contompasis, she told him burnt-out teachers should be replaced by “independent people with vision—not just the usual business model.”

While saying that “95% of the people that work in this organization do care,” Contompasis did have two dramatic ideas for turn-around. One was to designate ten “superintendent’s schools,” under-performing schools where there would be more flexibility to change educational strategy and staffing, under “a group of like-minded people.” That change would also require agreement with the Boston Teachers Union.

The “superintendent schools” are also a more proactive version of the recent decision to reorganize Boston English High School, whose persistent underperformance triggered pressure from the Mass. Dept. of Education. “I do not want to see another English High situation on my watch,” said Contompasis. If it were not for the school’s 200-year history, he said, “I would close it.”

The other idea was to have a high school fair—not for students coming out of the 8th grade, but for dropouts in search of schools or alternative programs such as Boston Evening Academy (a success whose main drawback, says Contompasis, is that “it’s not big enough”).

In the give-and-take at Freedom House, there were more ideas: arts programs, parental leave for class-time visits, attention to victims of violence, more youth workers, after-school programs, even helping students in those programs with the added cost of transportation.

At the Rennie Center discussion, some of the talk was more sweeping and ambitious. Governor Deval Patrick’s Education Advisor, Dana Mohler-Faria, called the figures presented by Sum “a wake-up call” and said the new administration was trying to “move forward with bold change.”

Sullivan said it was time for something that could fit on a bumper sticker: cutting the dropout rate in half in five years.

“It’s a policy driver that will inspire and motivate,” he said.

“We can turn this thing around in about five years,” he said. “But we have to hurry.”

Media Melting Pot

There's a new portal connecting the usually separate worlds of ethnic media, a website called New England Ethnic News, which is organized by the Center on Media & Society at UMass Boston. In recent months, the Center has been trying to forge new connections among ethnic and community news outlets--branches of the media that have been growing even as mainstream news outlets are cutting back.

One more example of ethnic convergence is a series of articles on race relations in and around Dorchester.

In this week's issue of the Dorchester Reporter, the series begins with an overview and an essay on Cape Verdean and neighborhood identity by the 17 year-old president of the Uphams Corner Youth Council, Maria Centeio.

Closing the Police-Community Gap

There’s some guardedly hopeful reaction to part of the strategy against violence mentioned in Mayor’s Menino’s State of the City speech on January 9—the advisory councils in every police district. The aims, said the mayor, were to improve communication with residents and “making sure that important information gets into the hands of the people who need it to prevent and solve crime.”

According to the associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, Jack McDevitt, similar councils have worked in other cities. “They’re another way to communicate with people,” he says. “They do tend to help, but it’s all a matter of degree.”

The CEO and president of the Louis. D. Brown Peace Institute, Clementina Chéry, says it’s a matter of who’s on the councils, and whether they’re “victim-centered.” After recent murders, Menino and Police Commissioner Ed Davis have been blunt about calling for more cooperation from the community. Chéry says the police have to do more to overcome the community’s distrust.

“It’s the same crime victims who are not talking to the police because they don’t trust the police,” says Chéry. She says a better strategy would be to have councils for crime victims—and more prevention.

Though somewhat better last year, the Boston Police Dept. rate of solving murder cases remains significantly below what it was in previous years. McDevitt says “continued focus on gun crimes is particularly important.” In his speech, the mayor also mentioned resources: plans for “more visibility where crime is on the rise” and more support for prevention.

City Councilor Charles Yancey says he also has recommended police-community advisory councils. He says many police officers still “have negative perceptions” of young males in the community, and he also mentions resources: “If we had a policy of maintaining pressure where we know we’re plagued with violence, we’ll have a better chance of controlling it.”

The executive director of Project RIGHT/Grove Hall, Jorge Martinez, says the councils might help prevent one other problem: the breakdown of communication that can happen when there’s a new district commander. “There should be a coalition put in place, so no matter who dies or gets promoted, the same relationship’s in place,” he says. He calls the advisory councils “very much needed,” and says they might have the credibility to get more information from people in the community. “If they don’t have a relationship,” he says, “it’s pretty hard to get people to come forward.”