Just under a thousand people gathered in a school gym last night to express a lot of concern about crime in Lakeview, and civic leaders eager to set a strategy with the city to respond to the youth crime wave moderated a meeting that was emotional and at times contentious. Newell invited Freddy Yoder and Brian Anderson onto the program Wednesday morning to discuss outcomes; Yoder is the President of the Lakeview Crime Prevention District, and President of the Lakeview Civic Improvement Association (LCIA). Anderson is a former President of LCIA. They were joined on-air by New Orleans City Councilman Jared Brossett.
"Brian, I'll start with you - you moderated the event last night and did an incredible job keeping things directed and on-task. What was the one thing last night that surprised you more than anything else?" Newell began.
"That we had so many people involved!" Anderson replied. "We ran the gamut - we had juvenile judges there, people from the council, 3rd District commander Ryan Lubrano was there, state police showed up, Helena Moreno, Jason Williams... I was very happy to see that the majority of the people that we invited were there."
"To Brian's credit, it was very well organized," Brossett agreed. "And it was well attended by constituents who are rightfully fed up by the amount of car break-ins they have experienced over the last year. Those people want factual information about what is being done, what's being funded... as a legislative body we can continue to invest in NOPD and increase their budget for recruits and for technology that assists in reducing crime.
"We were able to accomplish one of the primary goals we wanted to," Yoder said. "We knew going in that if we brought the right people to the table, and we were able to keep some peace and harmony with the crowd, we could make some headway. I went through the video this morning, and we have outlined about 40 things that we touched on and need to work on. This is the approach that LCIA has taken for many years - we bring the right people in, put them in the right seat, and ask the others to come to a solution or improvement on whatever the problem has been. We've used that same format for years. So now we have these problems, or at least most of them identified. I don't think anyone expected there to be a silver bullet that was going to solve all these problems, but we've been able to peel back the onion and find the different problem areas that got us here. I think if we can keep the ball rolling in the right direction and continue to have meetings and make progress by bringing the right people to the table, we will accomplish our goal of lowering crime all over New Orleans."