READING, Pa. – During its Committee of the Whole meeting Monday night, Reading City Council heard the city’s Managing Director Jack Gombach address the issue of youth violence in the city.

About three years ago, the city had allocated $50,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act funds for a related website, but Gombach said it has not been updated because the city has not received the needed input from its partner youth organizations.

“Overall, it’s our view that the website is a tool to help support the work — not the work in its entirety,” Gombach said. “The strategy reflects the mayor’s belief that youth safety is fundamental to the success of our city, but it also requires sustained coordination and a shared responsibility.”

“So, to that effect, he had asked that the administration bring in the school district, juvenile probation and community partners into a structured framework that produces measurable change,” Gombach said.

Part of the plan is to develop structured community town hall meetings.

Gombach said that over the past two years, the city has seen a 22% increase in juvenile arrests.

Many of those arrests stem from simple assault.

“That data tells us what we already know: that our kids are getting into fights,” Gombach said. “It is our view, after reviewing some information behind the data, that this is peer conflict escalating in middle school-aged youth struggling with impulse control, social media dynamics and group behavior.” 

Gombach said the city reached out to about 20 different youth-serving organizations throughout the region, but did not get the results, feedback or input that was anticipated.

“By the end of the month, we’re hoping to establish formal interagency working groups that will meet consistently, identifying high-incident crime windows, priority corridors and rethinking how we approach youth violence in city hall from the ground up over the next 12 months,” Gombach said.

Councilmember Melissa Ventura said she is frustrated with the lack of action.

“This administration knew for years now that we’ve been trying to deal with youth violence prevention,” Ventura said. “It’s not new to us. We know; we’ve been meeting with the school district, and there are no results. We spent $50,000 on a website; no results.”

“Having these meetings with the school district and juvenile prevention — that’s cool and all. However, all we do, year after year, is have meetings with no results,” Ventura continued. “Respectfully, that’s the trend that we’ve been seeing, and I really hope that at these meetings, you’re really involving these community organizations that want to help regardless of your differences.”

Gombach said the issue isn’t that organizations aren’t working together or communicating, but is a matter of capacity, a lack of funding and a lack of staff.

Gombach said the problem will not be figured out overnight.

“I think our focus right now is these meetings, these community engagements, these partnerships, and then after that, talk about how to leverage the website to communicate those findings,” Gombach added.