BSRanch
Wilson helps lead response to crime in San Bernardino
Images of the destruction are seared into the memory of the native New Yorker.
So, too, are the images of the hundreds of people who volunteered their time to help others recover from the disaster.
"The one thing about a crisis," he said, "is once you get past the tragedy, people really step up and you really find out what people are made of."
Wilson, 33, a former educator and businessman who was recently appointed to head San Bernardino's newly created Office of Community Safety and Violence Prevention, stops short of characterizing the city's crime problem as a crisis.
But the response from community organizations and individuals who want to do their part to reverse the violent trends reminds him, he said, of how New Yorkers stepped forward in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.
"They got knocked down," he said. "They got right back up."
San Bernardino's is ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in the nation, and although Mayor Pat Morris' four-months-old administration has brought forth a bevy of new anti-crime efforts, the city has had more than 30 homicides already this year. In 2005, it had a decade-high 58.
Morris created the Office of Community Safety and Violence Prevention as part of a new batch of initiatives he put together in the week following the death of 11-year-old Anthony Michael Ramirez.
Anthony was playing basketball at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School last month when a gunman opened fire and killed him.
Details of a contract for Wilson are still being worked out, said City Manager Fred Wilson, but he began work last week.
Kurt Wilson said he's in a "fact-finding" phase of evaluating what sort of violence prevention efforts are already under way before he launches into an program to help organize such efforts.
Asked for a job description, he paused.
"It is... I don't have a formal description to give you, but the concept of the office is to be a conduit to produce tangible results."
The goal, Wilson and Morris said, is not to create new government programs. It is, rather, to help organize community efforts and service organizations already established to achieve their mission by lending the resources and support of the Mayor's Office. Wilson answers directly to Morris.
"We are literally going everywhere," Wilson said, when asked who he'd be working with. "Faith-based, community-based groups - even a single person who's not affiliated with any organization - we want to talk to."
'A different hue'
Wilson was born in New York and moved to Rialto in 1977. He still lives there with his wife, Regina, and his daughter, Kennedy, 7.
He graduated from Eisenhower High School and served on city commissions until 2000, when, at 27, he became the youngest person in Rialto's history to be elected to the City Council.
He campaigned for office while undergoing intensive chemotherapy. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 and said his successful battle with the disease provided a new context in his life and public service.
He took the last of his medication for the cancer while he was in New York in 2001. He went to New York with CA-2 Disaster Medical Assistance Team, a local volunteer unit that is a component of the National Disaster Medical System.
Wilson worked as a business consultant and also founded the Wilson School in San Bernardino in 2001. The school, now closed, was designed for children with special educational needs.
In 2004, he ran for mayor of Rialto and came up 179 votes short. Wilson and fellow Councilman Joe Sampson played spoiler for each other as Grace Vargas won re-election with 38.99 percent of the vote.
Sampson said he doesn't harbor resentment and said Wilson, who bowed out of Rialto politics after the loss, is well-fit for his new post.
"He's a very energetic, innovative person, and I think he'll do a good job," Sampson said.
Morris, meanwhile, said Wilson's name came up repeatedly early in his administration when he put together a transition team to help him assemble a permanent staff.
He said Wilson's reputation as a problem-solver was what led him to offer Wilson the job.
The appointment may also benefit Morris politically in the city's black population.
"All the people trying to fix the problem, to me, can't look the same," said the Rev. Reginald Beamon, a community activist and a leading figure in recent anti-crime efforts. "(Wilson) brings a different hue to the regime."
Regina, Wilson's wife, is a daughter of Hardy and Cheryl Brown, stalwart figures in San Bernardino's black community.
Betty Grant, who has lived on San Bernardino's Westside for more than 50 years, said Wilson's personal relations could be of service to him.
"Some people may disagree," she said, "but if you know people in your personal relationships, and they're coming out of the community you're trying to tap into, it will go a long way."
Grant is a case-manager supervisor for Child Advocates of San Bernardino.
She knows first-hand the tragedy of violence: Her son was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1991.
After the shooting death of 14-year-old Jarred Mitchell in May, she said she believed the city had fallen down on the job in not providing enough opportunities to stay out of trouble.
Grant was one of the first people Wilson met with last week.
"I think he's very much in tuned to what's going on and what the needs are," Grant said. "I felt really good. I thought it was a positive meeting. I definitely think he's on the right track, and it sounds to me like he's going to be in touch with people out in the community."
The right generation
Among the others Wilson has met with so far are a group of young men from the Westside, who, as Wilson put it, have "spent quite a lot of time on the other side of the fence."
Wilson and Morris met with the group Friday.
Morris said he had sentenced some of them to prison as a Superior Court judge.
Neither Wilson nor Morris provided many details about the meeting, or what might eventually come out of it.
Wilson allowed that the young men are ready to leave the past behind and "are willing to do whatever it takes to make things better."
Wilson's age, some say, will be key in helping him reach just such people.
"Kurt is not that far removed from the generation we're trying to reach," Beamon said. "He still probably understands some of their plight."
Asked if he agreed, Morris, 68, said that after watching Wilson in action Friday, "The answer's yes."
For Wilson, the group of young people is just one example of the many people in San Bernardino are ready to fix the problem on the city's streets.
"People care," he said, sizing up the challenge he faces in his new job. "People really care. That's why this problem's solvable. Nobody's given up yet."
Name: Kurt Wilson
Age: 33
Job: Director of San Bernardino's newly created Office of Community Safety and Violence Prevention
Family: Lives in Rialto with wife, Regina, and daughter, Kennedy, 7
Past: In 2000, at 27, Wilson became the youngest person ever elected to the Rialto City Council. In 2004, he narrowly lost a bid to become the city's mayor.
No comments:
Post a Comment