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Community Corner

Anti-Gang Effort Continues Despite Loss of Funds

Committee meeting with police and others on ways to halt violence.

says he is proceeding with efforts to stem crime in Huntington Station, even though proposed funding to bolster local law-enforcement efforts in high-crime areas was voted down recently in Congress.

The Huntington Democrat organized the in September. The group aims to cultivate better communication among all levels of government and sectors of the community that have been affected by increasing violence. In addition to police, government officials, educators and residents, Israel got key federal agencies involved, including the FBI and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In a recent phone interview, Israel said he has arranged for the advisory committee to meet before mid-February with officials of the U.S. Department of Justice to discuss "other sources of funding for Huntington Station."

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"I've organized meetings with the FBI and local school officials to discuss a stepped-up FBI presence in Huntington Station," he added. Next month, through a program called HUD in Your Neighborhood, that agency "will deploy some of its resources in the high school and make them available to the community," he said.  

Israel said he will continue to "urge the Suffolk County executive to fulfill the bottom line, which is to provide more police. I'm doing everything in my purview as a federal official and I hope the district attorney and the police will step up their efforts."

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Dee Thompson of the said the anti-gang advisory committee is meeting with Neighborhood Watch groups and attendsmeetings regularly, "where we get updated information on where the gangs are and what they're doing."

"This committee is a work in progress," said Huntington Town Councilman Mark Mayoka. "Our meetings have unified many local organizations and groups around the issues of public housing and violence." Participants include community and civic leaders, local town council members, clergy and members of the Housing Authority. Mayoka said he looks forward to the Huntington Town Board "seeing many proposals in the next 90 days." 

Israel said he had secured bipartisan funding of nearly $1.5 million for additional law enforcement, including resources for the district attorney and prosecutor. "But the new Republican leadership in Congress decided that all of the funding would be abolished because they considered it an 'earmark'."

The congressman detailed the abolished funding: $750,000 for the Suffolk County District Attorney for surveillance—including electronic surveillance—and prosecution of gang activity; $250,000 for community groups to develop anti-gang programs in the high schools; and $400,000 for the Dolan Family Health Center to identify high school students at risk for joining a gang, and instead provide apprenticeships that can train them for jobs in medical fields.

Israel and Adolfo Carrión, the regional administrator for HUD, took a walking tour of Huntington Station last fall. "He identified HUD resources that he wants to put on the ground here," Israel said, "rather than creating the burden for the community to go to Washington and ask for them."

"HUD officials and their colleagues who make grants available will be meeting with the Huntington community and school officials to put together a blueprint for action," Israel said.

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