Reno City Councilwoman Jessica Sferrazza takes pride in the cleanup of the Oliver/Montello area in her ward. Bringing down the blight has helped rein in opportunities for gang activity in or near abandoned buildings there and improve neighborhood safety, she said.

Sferrazza said the city has learned the most effective way to revitalize the oldest, most gang-stricken parts of the city are to tackle one neighborhood at a time with the help of federal grants and initiatives.

Leaders in both Reno and Sparks are concerned about gang activity and the need for more money to kickstart revitalization efforts. Julia Ratti, the newest member of the Sparks City Council and a former executive director of the Gang Alternatives Partnerhip, represents a ward in Sparks similar to Sferrazza’s in Reno. Ratti is starting to wrap her brain around the big picture of what it takes as a city official to clean up a neighborhood and battle the social ills that lead to gang activity — something Sferrazza has been working on for nine years.

Cleaning up Montello

Sferrazza, who represents Ward 3, said much of the revitalization work to remove foreclosed homes or other dens of drug dealing and gang activity has been successful in the Oliver/Montello neighborhood.

“We had three commercial properties that we were able to acquire and tear down,” she said. “There was a lot of gang activity and we were able to acquire dilapidated buildings and tear them down. We set up a task force about two years ago and we were able to secure funding for new restrooms (at Pat Baker Park). The new park equipment came from the people who live there through a residential construction funding tax.”

Oliver and Montello received extra help from a $588,000 grant for which the Reno Housing Authority entered into an interlocal agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and with a little help from Sen. Harry Reid.

The grant allowed the city to purchase 13 additional foreclosed houses, fix them up and sell them as rent-to-own homes, Sferrazza said.

“It’s the broken-window theory,” Sferrazza said of the effort as a whole. “You have one broken window in an area that doesn’t get fixed, then other things start to happen. One person doesn’t maintain their house and that house has dying grass and weeds, then it has a trickle-down effect throughout the community. That’s why neighborhood involvement is so important.”

But the city isn’t stopping there. A new initiative will target Neil Road, an area that has been the scene of gang activity in recent months.

“We’ve had several gang shootings over there and it’s tragic because you have young people … (who were) tagging,” she said. “(The shooting) was retaliation; someone was tagging over this person’s gang writing. We’re trying to take proactive steps.”

Police cannot remove graffiti on private property without the owner’s consent. Now, in a step to combat graffiti and related incidents, the city is collecting advance waivers from frequent graffiti victims so that once vandalism is reported, authorities can remove it as quickly as possible and not have to wait for permission from owners at each occurrence.

Symptoms, not a cause

Working to curb escalating gang activity in the community, Ratti is one of the community leaders who was part of the Gang Alternatives Partnership during the 1990s. Now a Sparks councilwoman, Ratti said the purpose of GAP was to address a problem that only a few knew about when the non-profit formed in 1991.

“The only people who knew that it was going on was law enforcement and the people involved in the gangs,” Ratti explained.

Ratti said that as a community, GAP worked with other organizations to create activities for at-risk youth in hopes of preventing gang membership. She said, however, that funding for such programs is difficult to obtain and that many preventative programs are compromised because of funding issues.

Ratti said gangs are a symptom and not the cause of the problem, adding that society needs to address the core problems of poverty, lack of education and discrimination.

“There’s nowhere near enough,” Ratti said. “As a society we are not investing in our kids sufficiently. That ‘we’ is a big we. I fully believe that if we are going to address this problem, it needs to be a community-wide initiative.”

Social problems are not solved overnight, Ratti said. She added that a research paper published in 1999 by GAP and consultant Shelia Leslie, now a State Assembly member, suggested a three-pronged approach to gangs: prevention, intervention and enforcement.

“You can’t do it all with enforcement and the police will tell you that they can only deal with the crime aspect of it,” Ratti said. “There is a never-ending pipeline of kids who will get involved if you don’t deal with the prevention side, but I think the one that gets lost the most is intervention side.”

A rough road

Both city councils have faced challenges with restricted budgets. Public safety and enforcement are a top priority for Reno and Sparks, but when it comes to gangs, prevention is also key, Sferrazza said.

“During an economic downturn, you have to have free activities for people to participate in and it’s a balance,” she said. “Providing recreational opportunities in this community is important.”

The previous city council established the Neil Road Recreation Center and Nevada Hispanic Services provides a health clinic. One idea that has come from young people, Sferrazza said, is having a place to box, which makes sense to her as a partnership with the Washoe County School District to help prevent dropouts. Reduction in pool hours also have been another means of cuts.

“Moana Pool was cost-prohibitive,” she said. “Pools are very expensive.”

In Sparks, budget cuts have eliminated two code enforcement positions, making it more difficult to fight blight and curb the “broken-window” theory. Ratti said that government-funded programs are also lacking with the intervention department.

Mentoring programs such as Big Brothers Big Sisters are good programs, she said, but volunteers need to be committed to being long-term role models for the kids they mentor.

“Like anything else, it’s about getting to them at the right time,” Ratti said. “We see support is missing for kids who want out. We need more Latino teachers and more Latino professionals.

Ratti added there are projects and programs the city is working on that she believes will help reduce gang-related activity.

“We have to look at neighborhood revitalization,” Ratti said. “We had to cut our graffiti funding in half. We used to have two (graffiti clean-up) guys and now we only have one. We have applied for a cop grant and we are asking for 20 more police officers.”

Yet, Ratti understands that between government, non-profits and individuals, it is not an easy road to travel.

“Are we doing enough as a community?” Ratti asked. “Absolutely not.”