NEWBURGH – City officials, stakeholders and community activists met at the Boys and Girls Club Thursday evening to participate in Newburgh’s second community forum on stopping the violence.
In the wake of recent bloodshed, it has become more apparent than ever, to the city and its residents, that something new and innovative must be done to mitigate the scourge of violence in the city that is causing suffering to families and destroying their children.
Mayor Judy Kennedy said the violence permeating Newburgh is not something people expect to be fixed overnight, but events like Thursday’s forum are beginning to sow the seeds of change.
“Everybody here realizes it’s not going to get fixed in one night but, if we keep doing these kinds of conversations then, something is going to change, even if it’s one good idea out of the entire meeting. It is creating an energy,” said Kennedy. “Solutions come from energy and you’ve got to create that positive energy of hope.”
For this forum, individuals operating at almost every different capacity within the city, for instance: Police Chief Daniel Cameron, teacher and Councilman Torrance Harvey, local philanthropist William Kaplan, board member of the Newburgh Unity Center and Community Center Philip Howard and Regina Cieslak of TEAM Newburgh, participated in various groups where each was assigned a topic regarding violence mitigation and the goal was to brainstorm ideas for how each one could put an actionable plan together to address the topic. After each group’s discussion had finished, one member presented their idea to the entire forum.
Some of the proposals were to provide career sponsors and advocates for youth; to provide a neutral territory for rival gang groups to meet on diplomatic terms; furthering community policing to include programs where youths could meet the officers “off-duty” in order to allow them to meet the person behind the uniform; programs to promote respect within the household, job fairs, soft professional skill training; literacy programs for youths and adults; community organized cookouts or block parties; deputizing youths; and a revamped neighborhood watch program.
Although the ideas were far reaching and multi-faceted, Councilman Harvey said he believes, based on his experience with Newburgh’s youth as a high school teacher, the frustration and violence are mostly a product of financial insecurity.
“These young people want money,” said Harvey. “They want to earn an honest living. They want a better quality of life and that’s what America is based on: capitalism and democracy. They want a good quality of life just like anyone of us.”
Suitably, much of Thursday evening’s discussion was aimed toward that end but, another major identifier was that a lot of the issues facing the youth, which in turn propagate the violence, are stemmed from a multi-generational series of, for lack of a better term, “blood feuds” within long standing local families. These “beefs” are, in turn, passed down through the generations and many of these youths do not possess the necessary conflict resolution mechanisms because their parents before them did not possess them.
The city has a number of community events coming up including a youth clean-up for the city this Saturday at Third and Lander, a donation of 720 cases of organic baby formula at the Community Center on Washington Street, also this Saturday. Also, next Saturday, there will be a Keep Newburgh Clean event at the Ritz and free community kickball for ages 5-8 beginning.
Residents of the community are urged to get their families involved in one way or another because now, as Mayor Kennedy said, Newburgh is in a state of emergency with violence and the only way to combat it will be having willing participation of all within the community.
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