By Leslie Collins
Northeast News
August 24, 2011

“There is no perfect solution, but I tell you to do nothing is no solution at all,” Kansas City Mayor Sly James said during the Aug. 18 City Council Business Session.

For more than two hours, city council members and members of the public discussed the city’s youth violence dilemma and the recent shootings of three youth on the Country Club Plaza.

City council members debated whether or not to make changes to the city’s curfew for minors and some said there needed to be more discussion.

“I think we have to do something. In lieu of doing nothing, curfew may be part of the answer,” City Council member Melba Curls said.

In the end, city council members decided the curfew was part of the answer and voted unanimously to adopt a more severe curfew for those under 17.

During the business meeting, Kansas City Police Chief James Corwin voiced opposition to curfew changes, calling it a “nuclear option.”

“I do think it’s time we get a lot of people around the table to talk about this (youth violence),” Corwin said.

Council member Scott Wagner disagreed with the “nuclear” statement, pointing out the city already has a minor curfew and proposing changes isn’t “groundbreaking.” He also questioned if the current curfew was “unenforced or unenforceable.”

When Wagner asked Corwin how many people had been arrested or cited for breaking curfew, Corwin said, “I probably could count them on my left hand.”

As council members continued to cite violence on the Plaza, Council member Michael Brooks said it’s more than a Plaza problem.

“It’s amazing to me that once there’s one (shooting) on the Plaza there’s an uprising,” Brooks said. “My frustration is the Plaza is not the only place that needs to be safe. We should have been having this conversation a long time ago.”

Brooks said crimes and murders are occurring all over the city and when “young black kids” on the east side are murdered, nobody cares. Both his cousin and a fellow church member were murdered over the weekend, he said.

“I’m concerned about the ones that are shot all over the city,” he said.

Council member John Sharp said he knew Brooks’ cousin, Edward Ewing II. Ewing and Sharp’s son Mark were good friends and played sports together.

“He used to be at the house all the time. The only time I can remember seeing him since high school was at the funeral of another one of their classmates,” Sharp said. “We have to do a better job of preventing and solving homicides in this city. I’ve gone to too many funerals of young people. My son has gone to too many funerals. He shouldn’t. I’m the one that should be going to a lot of funerals not a 25-year-old.”

Enforcing a curfew isn’t enough, said Council members Jermaine Reed and Jim Glover. Kansas City also needs to provide positive activities for youth, they said.

To spark more activities for youth, Glover met with the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Kansas City, YMCA of Greater Kansas City, Kansas City’s community centers and faith-based organizations, asking them to offer more activities for youth.

President of the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Kansas City, the chief executive officer of the YMCA of Greater Kansas City and the director of Kansas City’s community centers all attended the business meeting and said they would work together to offer more activities for youth and offer extended hours of operation.

Kansas City resident Gayle Mack-Mason said it’s time Kansas City’s faith-based organizations combine their resources to offer positive activities for youth.

“It’s time for us in the faith based community to become water walkers instead of water talkers,” she said in reference to Jesus asking one of his disciples to walk on water.

During the Aug. 18 City Council meeting, Glover introduced a resolution urging the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners to open the city’s community centers to middle school and high school aged youth on Friday and Saturday evenings. The resolution also urged the parks and recreation commissioners to contact and “work with organizations interested in the well-being of young people to support appropriate programs for those times.” Finally, the resolution requested the city manager identify funds to support youth programming. City council members unanimously passed the resolution.

Curfew changes explained

Instead of the once standard $1 fine for breaking curfew, the city has increased the maximum fine to $500.

The new curfew is now in effect and stipulates that during summer months, from the Friday preceeding Memorial Day through the last Sunday in September, the curfew for minors under 16 will be 10 p.m. For minors ages 16 and 17, the curfew is 11 p.m.

City council members also designated five areas that will have a special curfew during the summer. Those include the Country Club Plaza, Westport, downtown/Central Business District, 18th and Vine and Zona Rosa. All five locations will have a 9 p.m. curfew for anyone under age 18.

Beginning in October, the curfew will revert back to 11 p.m. for all minors under 18 on weekdays and at midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.

Designated curfew detention centers are Brush Creek Community Center and Kansas City Police Department’s North Patrol lobby. Minors who violate the curfew will be detained in one of the curfew detention centers and parents will be contacted to pick up their child.

Exceptions for the curfew include:

•When a minor is attending an event for which the city has specifically approved the presence of unaccompanied minors upon city property

•When a minor is accompanied by his or her parent, guardian or other adult having the lawful care and custody of the minor

•When the minor is on an emergency errand directed by his or her parent or guardian or other adult having the lawful care and custody of such minor

•When the minor is returning directly home from a school activity, school entertainment, school recreational activity or school dance

•When the minor is returning directly home from lawful employment that makes it necessary to be in the places referenced in the ordinance during the prescribed period of time

•When the minor is attending or traveling directly to or from an activity involving the exercise of first amendment rights of free speech, freedom of assembly or free exercise of religion

•When the minor is traveling through the city on the interstate.