As Los Angeles leaders pledge to combat gang violence, a dysfunctional city bureaucracy is spending millions of dollars on unproved programs and is failing to coordinate with schools, law enforcement, and social agencies, says an L.A. City Controller’s report quoted by the Los Angeles Times.
The report assails the city for taking a hodgepodge approach to youth and gang services. The city scatters oversight across more than a dozen departments that duplicate efforts and award contracts to antigang programs without goals or objectives, the report says. Controller Laura Chick will call for a bureaucratic shake-up at City Hall that she admits could be politically difficult to execute. The controller urges the city to place everything under a single entity in the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who would have the authority and visibility to bring about change while bearing responsibility for progress.
Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gangs14feb14,1,2138481.story