Riordan, Burke to Seek Aid for Anti-Gang Plan

Organizers of a powerful South-Central Los Angeles community group found they had friends in high places Wednesday night when Mayor Richard Riordan and County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said they would do their best to provide more money for a controversial anti-gang program.

Their promises to boost city and county funding for the new Hope in Youth program came during a standing-room-only meeting of the Southern California Organizing Committee at the Phillips Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

The meeting was called to press the committee’s demands not only for more money for the program but also for local government officials’ help in getting a bottling plant to open in South-Central, bringing a supermarket to the community and organizing a jobs summit for the area.

Riordan’s and Burke’s enthusiastic agreement to push the organization’s agenda brought vigorous cheers and applause from the group, whose confrontational techniques often have put political leaders on the hot seat.

But as Burke pointed out, coming through with the promised additional funds for Hope in Youth may not be easy. Both the city and the county are struggling with budget deficits spawned by the state’s continuing economic problems.