Nearly six months after community development corporation Old Northeast, Inc. closed its doors, community leaders have developed a plan to fill its shoes and transform the Community Action Network.
Twenty-three people convened Saturday for the final of six planning sessions concerning the Northeast CAN. The group, including representatives of Kansas City Police, Greater Kansas City Local Investment Support Corporation, five of the
Northeast neighborhoods and other local organizations, emerged with a framework for a master plan to create a center aimed at improving quality of life in Northeast.
“You have a state-of-the-art plan,” said Myra Dillingham, the facilitator whom LISC hired to lead discussions. “I don’t see anywhere near the detail [in other organizations].”
The plan includes an organizational structure, specific goals, the beginning of a budget and a timeline for moving forward.
The five areas of concentration for the new CAN will be business growth, community improvement, crime prevention, diversity and youth enrichment. Some of the specific actions the CAN focus group has identified for achieving goals within those five areas have included sponsoring job fairs, organizing block watch programs, initiating crime prevention programs, sponsoring culturally accepted neighborhood gatherings, sponsoring diversity training, forming a think tank to explore options for those going through immigration issues, creating tutoring, mentoring and job shadowing programs and more.
“We are going to have, I believe, the most effective CAN in Kansas City, Mo.,” said Katheryn Shields, executive director of Westside Housing. “It’s really a transformation of the organization. It’s going to be great for this community.”
In the past, the CAN has simply consisted of weekly meetings of concerned residents and police officers to share concerns and tips. However, East Patrol Major Anthony Ell expressed in the fall that there needed to be a broader plan for the CAN in order for the police to continue participating, which resulted in this focus group and planning process.
Lee Lambert, president of the Independence Plaza Neighborhood Council and longtime CAN leader, was initially skeptical about the new plans. However, he said Saturday he was fairly satisfied with what has come out of the focus group.
“It seems it was what the major was wanting us to do,” he said. “It can be good.”
He said despite KCPD’s pulling officers out of the weekly CAN meetings during this period of transition, the original CAN Steering Committee has still been meeting every Wednesday at noon at Don Bosco Administrative Offices. Residents may still bring concerns to that group, he said, and he’ll e-mail police.
The master plan framework the CAN Focus Group developed this winter indicates the CAN will open a visible and accessible center and hire staff to run it and build relationships with the community partners that will provide the vital support to make the network function.
The recommended timeline moving forward goes at a clipping pace, stating by the end of March, an ad hoc board of directors should be formed, along with an advisory committee, and a facility site should be found.
A research committee of seven people have and will continue to consider locations for the CAN Center. The group preliminarily rated nine sites, with Thatcher School, 4904 E. Independence Ave., rating highest, followed by the former Animal Hospital, 3400 block of East Independence Avenue, the Post Office building at 2657 Independence Ave., and Rios De Agua Viva, 3200 E. Independence Ave.
By April/May, the plan calls for establishing a committee to search for a CAN Center coordinator, starting to secure funding in May/June, and hiring a cooridinator by August. By September, in the recommended timeline, the CAN Center would open.
LISC Senior Program Officer John Wood said the timeline needs to be this aggressive.
“I think the next step is maybe to convene people,” he said. “We might just call people from those organizations we know and let them [appoint someone to the ad hoc board of directors].”
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