PROGRAM WOULD HELP COMBAT DRUGS

A sign posted on the gymnasium wall inside Carver Recreation Center reads:
"Anyone causing disturbances will positively be barred from further entrance."

This statement perhaps best summed up the opinions held by approximately 40
local citizens concerned about the crimes being committed every day in
their neighborhoods.

A forum held in the center located at 322 W. Watauga Ave. Monday morning
proposed a possible solution for ridding troubled communities surrounding
Carver Park and Wilson Avenue.

Drug abuse and the violent crimes which accompany it have threatened the
safety of residents living in these areas of the city to the point that
some now hesitate to call the police to report a crime for fear of
repercussions from drug-dealing neighbors.

But a new strategy, "Operation Weed and Seed," could reclaim such
neighborhoods blighted by crime.

This federal program was developed by the U.S. Department of Justice to
"weed out" crime and take back neighborhoods by planting seeds for growth
in communities withering from the heat of drug trafficking and violent
crime that radiates throughout their streets.

The program is accompanied by a price tag of $225,000, paid in full
annually by federal grant dollars to communities lucky enough to receive
the government's go ahead.

Once the grant application is approved, at least half of the funding
($112,500) must be used to form a police precinct to step up law
enforcement in the targeted crime-ridden neighborhoods during the program's
first year in existence.

Every year after that, an additional $50,000 can be requested by these
communities for seed money to grow special initiatives programs to improve
living conditions in the neighborhoods specified.

"The money could be used to purchase such luxuries as street lighting,
gardening supplies, playground equipment, good, solid doors and deadbolts,
as well as maintenance and renovation of housing," RussDedrick, first
assistant to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District, serving
2.5 million people in 41 Tennessee counties, said.

Deadline to submit applications for grant money to fund "Operation Weed and
Seed" is Oct. 31.

Much of local law enforcement's most recent efforts have been concentrated
on Wilson Avenue, where residents say drug deals can be witnessed even in
broad daylight.

"Operation Weed and Seed" is a community-based strategy designed to create
and promote partnerships toward improving local neighborhoods and the
quality of life experienced by its residents, Dedrick said.

Developed by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs
near the end of Jimmy Carter's administration, executing "Operation Weed
and Seed" locally would involve using a community policing strategy.

The Johnson City Bureau of Police would begin by identifying specific areas
of criminal activity in a given area and patrolling them "24 hours a day,
seven days a week" to cleanse the targeted neighborhoods of the criminal
element, Dedrick said.

Johnson City Bureau of Police Captain Trent Harris said the local police
force is committed to implementing a plan for a full-time patrol of the
specified neighborhoods and setting up a precinct much like the one now in
full swing in Bristol.

Benny Berry, referred to by Dedrick as "the sheriff of Anderson Street," is
currently assigned to the Bristol neighborhood, coordinating its "Operation
Weed and Seed," which was officially launched in October 2001.

"The residents there actually stood up and cheered when Benny Berry walked
in, because they finally felt that their neighborhood was going to be
safe," Dedrick said.

The enthusiasm to form a program in Johnson City is apparently just as
strong, with residents who attended the meeting Monday anxious to hold
another forum to discuss moving ahead with the project and organizing a
steering committee to begin the grant application process.

In addition to fighting crime, Operation Weed and Seed would replace
destructive addictions with constructive additions, like the new community
center currently being built in Bristol.

"In Chattanooga we have two "Operation Weed and Seed" programs now in
place, and another one in Cleveland. These were neighborhoods which had
been destroyed by drug abusers and gangs," Dedrick said.

Run-down, dilapidated schools in all three of these areas were once drug
havens. Today they are safe havens, providing the people in the
neighborhoods they serve with medical and dental care, computer training
and adult education classes. Plans for a child care center and a credit
union are also on the horizon.

For more information, contact Pat Gass, director of special projects for
East Tennessee State University's Center for Community Outreach, which is
helping to coordinate the program, at 232-5166 or visit the "Operation Weed
and Seed" Web site at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/eows.