It wasn’t included on the agenda, but at the June 1 meeting the City Council received a rare update on the Cure Violence program.
When the Cure Violence Program was being approved for funding by the Greensboro City Council in October 2019 and November 2020, City Councilmember Yvonne Johnson was recused because of a conflict of interest.
Johnson is the executive director of One Step Further, which contracted with the city to run the program for $500,000 in 2019 and $400,000 in 2020. Even though One Step Further is a nonprofit, it was decided that Johnson, as executive director, had a conflict of interest and should not participate in the votes.
Usually, when a councilmember is recused from an item on the agenda, they are recused from the entire item, which includes the discussion. With Cure Violence, Johnson has been recused from the votes, but not the discussions, and as a sitting councilmember has spoken in favor of awarding the contract to One Step Further.
Continuing in that very limited recusal, Johnson in her official capacity as a member of the City Council did give a brief report to the City Council at its June 1 meeting on the Cure Violence program as the executive director of One Step Further.
Also, as a sitting member of the City Council, Johnson directed Assistant City Manager Trey Davis to give a more detailed report on the results of the Cure Violence program that is run by her agency.
Johnson said, “People need more information. They need to know what is happening.”
Also, as a councilmember, or perhaps as executive director of One Step Further, Johnson asked for “a place on the City of Greensboro website where we can keep people abreast of the situation.”
Davis began his presentation by stating that he didn’t have much data because Gate City Coalition, which is the official name of the Greensboro Cure Violence program, had not been able to coordinate the training with Cure Violence Global on how to capture the data and track it more closely.
This is a program that was funded by the City Council in October 2019. It would seem that how to track and store data would have been included in the initial training.
The update by Davis had some interesting data points nonetheless. Davis said that in January there were 46 participants in the program.
He explained that a participant was someone who met four different criteria, which included gang involvement, possession of weapons, known involvement in criminal activity, known involvement in street activity, known as a victim of violence, known to have served jail or prison time and fits within an age range of 16 to 25 years old.
Davis said that in February the number of participants who met the criteria had increased to 56 and in March 57.
In April, the number of participants went down to 48, which is, according to Davis, termed a success because some participants had been discharged, meaning they no longer meet the criteria.
It is however a little hard to understand how you can rate the success of a program if more participants is good, because it means more outreach in the communities, and fewer participants is good, because it means participants have been discharged.
Davis said that according to Cure Violence they had averaged about eight violent interruptions a week. However, there was no definition offered of what constitutes a violent interruption or if there was any corroborating evidence to support this statement.
Davis offered to provide quarterly updates to the City Council that would include more data.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan asked for a report on Cure Violence “if not weekly at very least monthly.”
How many take-home patrol cars could they afford with that money?
Good grief!!!! When will this council put a stop to giving away the farm to political cronies like Johnson. My guess is she has been living “large” earning a salary for the various programs she is involved in, or at least what are called stipends for being on various boards, etc.
All of this at a time when we have problems in providing basic city services such as police, fire, water/sewer, traffic/transportation, etc.
Would be interesting to know the total dollars allocated to “community” interests (aka grants) and the number of boards/agencies which get them, and also the names and salaries (stipends) each city council member gets for sitting on those boards. Surely that is a public record.
Soooooo we have “participants,” where are the results? Looks like a waste of time and money to those of us following along.
What a crock this money pit is it will soon be like skippys little money loser downtown and be a drain on taxpayers forever and a day I remember the big sales pitch skip gave about it being a big economic draw for downtown still laughing about that one. I’d like to know how many tickets are sold in any week or month we could probably count them on our hands
How many nonprofits does it take to manage this nonprofit…? Why not give each participant $ 10,000.00 and call it a day.
It tales two people to unscrew a nonprofit.
Anyone meeting four of those criteria should probably be in jail.
We need a cure forCure Violence.
Another disgraceful mess.Dont worry though,you dedicated stalwarts who are wasting these resources-it’ll blow over just like all the other crap.
You know, folks-if this joke of a program were working-you would have had the results already at hand-you would have been crowing about your successes-backed up with real hard data and examples of your triumphs,instead of offering quarterly BS deposits.
Sad
Also, as a sitting member of the City Council, Johnson directed Assistant City Manager Trey Davis to give a more detailed report on the results of the Cure Violence program that is run by her agency.
LOL Listen here Trey, you need to be more specific in your report about my agency. Oh wait, I have recused myself. Oh wait, It’s my agency and I can’t seem to report on it.
How about some real information Ms. Johnson? 57 – 48 = 9. Where are those 9 participants? Are they now contributing members of society? Just what did the CURE THE VIOLENCE do for these participants?
Maybe they just disappeared after GRADUATING from this program?
I would like to know the criteria for “violence interruption.” There will never be a valid study of the program’s effectiveness without definitions of terms and actual statistical measurements. Basic statistics class from a four year university.
Where is the accountability? It involves council so there is none with our tax payers dollars. Corruption? Malfeasance of office? Lack of respect and accountability for the citizens and their tax dollars? Federal investigation underway? Anti-police? East side council’s door the mayor full of ignorance?
Did I miss anything?
Did anyone expect anything different than what we just got as far as reporting ? We know it is a failure because it has NOT worked anywhere and Johnson’s company is running it. Paid $900,000 and don’t know how to use the Cure Violence work site? Somebody actually used that as an excuse? Even better— those sitting on the council ACCEPTED THIS AS AN ANSWER!! Are they afraid that they will be called racist because the city is asking a black run business that accepted money from the city to ACCOUNT for that money? What a bunch of idiots?
Yvonne Johnson is very good at “working her ticket” as they say in Australia.
[ plying government to receive money, based on some pretext or other]
Do ALL the violent criminals in Greensboro live in the same two areas that are covered in the “Cure the Violence” program. Why not just build a high fence around these two areas and same this waste of money. And to know that there are this many violent criminal living near all of us makes us all afraid to live in peace.
Cure Violence is a joke. It benefits Yvonne and a few others. So 50 or so clients over 2 years with a budget of $300,000. Policing is cheaper and better. Someone or a few folks are making a huge pocketful of cash. Johnson and who else? Hightower since it’s in her District and word is Skip Alston has a hand in the basket. Council needs to ditch this program and give some effort to the middle class who pay most of the taxes.