Community Meeting Will Focus On Stockton Crime Problems
STOCKTON (CBS13) — City leaders are preparing to host a community meeting this Thursday to tackle the growing problem of violence and crime throughout Stockton.
Organizers plan to meet in the morning, but some activists say the time may be inconvenient and are asking for additional forums to be added.
Since the recent number of homicides in Stockton over the last three weeks, case managers at fathers and families of San Joaquin have been busy helping those impacted by the violence and crime.
"The cases that have impacted me the most, that carry home with me are often are homicides and shooting especially when they're folks younger than me," said Missy Rae Magalera, Stockton Trauma Recovery Center.
The agency works to strengthen families with programs focused on youth empowerment and leadership. It also centers on violence prevention.
"The community members are the ones that are affected by it, you know. A lot of the officials aren't affected by it," said Andrew Lucero, case manager, Fathers and Families of San Joaquin.
The city is hosting a community meeting Thursday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. about what to do about all the crime and violence, but activists say it needs to be at a better time so everyone can participate.
"If we're having a community meeting where the community is not showing up and you're having it in a time that is not conducive for the community to show up, you are doing it during work hours, school hours, who are they really reaching out to in the community to help solve those problems?," said community activists, Motecuzoma Sanchez.
The manager of the Office of Violence Prevention which organizes the community engagement coalition meetings says they did have a couple of meetings in the evenings but only had a handful of people show up.
"We did advertise it, our community coordinator went around and spoke to people, and we still didn't get the turnout. We seem to get the most bang for our buck 9 to 11," said Latosha Walden, manager, Office of Violence Prevention.
Organizers do plan on handing out an evaluation during the meeting with questions to help get more participation and to find out if there is a need to change the time for concerned citizens.
"I went them to be able to become more involved, more engaged and really wanting people to get on board and join those efforts," she said.
The violence prevention meeting is scheduled to take place at the Civic Auditorium in downtown Stockton on Thursday.
