last week\u2019s silent vigil<\/a> at council\u2019s committee of the whole meeting, attended Tuesday\u2019s session but declined to speak.<\/p>\nThe vigil organized to protest gun violence in Reading erupted into emotional outbursts after participants learned of another shooting in City Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that it takes a multitude of actions to curb violence, such as safer spaces and mentorship,\u201d McLendon wrote, noting young people need human relationships, immediate crisis intervention and safe physical spaces.<\/p>\n
McLendon\u2019s letter specifically criticized a $50,000 American Rescue Plan-funded youth violence prevention website, saying it has not been updated or effectively used since its launch.<\/p>\n
Those funds could have instead supported physical safe spaces for young people, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt costs only $10,000 to keep the doors open to our safe haven on North Ninth Street for an entire year,\u201d the letter stated.<\/p>\n
McLendon also renewed a previous request for the city to establish an Office of Violence Prevention modeled after Pennsylvania\u2019s Office of Gun Violence Prevention.<\/p>\n
After the letter was read, Miller said he understood McLendon\u2019s frustration and passion surrounding youth violence but wanted to provide additional context regarding the city\u2019s ARPA spending.<\/p>\n
Miller listed several organizations that received violence prevention or youth-related funding through the city\u2019s ARPA allocations, including Centro Hispano, Olivet Boys & Girls Club, YMCA of Reading and Berks County, Star City Boxing and others.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s important that people understand that council, when we had the funds available, did what we could to try to help organizations address this issue,\u201d Miller said. \u201cIt\u2019s not that we\u2019re ignoring it.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Managing Director Jack Gombach echoed that sentiment, saying the city is trying to take a more coordinated approach, moving forward by working with schools, county agencies, nonprofits and private philanthropy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to look to see how other communities have successfully launched their coalition-building to generate results,\u201d Gombach said. \u201cWe need to do a paradigm shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilman Raymond Baker, who also serves as an assistant Berks County district attorney, said combating violence requires multiple approaches beyond policing alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t do it with one tool,\u201d Baker said. \u201cYou need multiple tools in your tool chest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baker and McLendon thanked council President Donna Reed and council members Melissa Ventura, Jaime Baez and Rafael Nunez for remaining after last week\u2019s meeting to continue talking with residents and activists.<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s vigil escalated after participants learned during the meeting of another shooting near the basketball courts at City Park.<\/p>\n
Police are investigating the incident, which left one man hurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council revisited the emotional discussion on gun violence that unfolded last week after community activist Radarra McLendon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,857,182,139,28,736,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-204404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-essential-reading","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}