Enviro mental
- justice top civil ·
rights agenda
.JO
performance of th te police in
addition to giving opportuniti to
minorities.
o ICB.(AP)-
J c Hall Y all he wanted w
p ying job when he became
Michigan' first Bt c tate police
trooper in 1967.
, Twenty-five year later, the
Benton Harbor native became the
first Black trooper to retire from the
force.
In between, Hall erved at posts
in Flint, Nile , Detroit and Ioni
before retiring in ugu t as a
captain in charge of affirmative
ction.
Hall aid he believes affirmative
action pro ms have improved the
"OU' GOT TO represent
the community you erve," Hall
told The Herald-Palladium of St.
Jo eph "When police
department i all one race, there' a
group thing. It' e y to get caught
up when everybody' the me
race."
Hall was tudying to become an
engineer when he 10 t his job t an
automotive company in the early
1960s. He applied for a job a
JACK HALL
he'. not y to retire from public
ervlce, He recently w hired by
the Michigan Dep rtment of
Corrections director of internal
a II.
PIC r
JTP
uaed at the LMC main campus In
Benton Township, t the South Cam­
p , 111 Spruce Street in Niles, or at
any of the College's extension
centeno
Coleman IIld there are a lim! ted
number of Start- Up Scholarships .
van ble, and interested persons
should call the financial aid omce
soon possible at (616) 927-8100
or 1-800-252-1LMC or the South
Camp at (616) 684-5850.
TAKE THE CASE of the
all-Black, middle cl neigh­
borhood Carver Terrace in
Texarkana, Texa , and the
white, blue-collar Mountain
View Home community in
Globe, Arizona. Both faced
similar life-threatening dilem­
ma but received very dif­
ferent treatment from federal
authoritie .
Carver Terrace was built on
land formerly used as a chemi­
cal dump ite for PCP, arsenic
and other deadly contaminates
- land 0 toxic the EPA put
th neighborhood on the Na­
tional Priorities List for clean
up and Congre ordered the
removal of the residents.
In accordance wi th law, the
displaced Carver Terrace resi­
dents were entitled to govern­
ment reimbursement to allow
them to obtain comparable
housing.
Federal authoritie ap­
praised the properties below
replacement cost, $30,000 to
$40,000 for most single-fami­
ly homes. In stark contrast,
each resident of Mountain .
View Mobile Homes received
a whopping $80,000 to move
from the asbestos-saturated
soil beneath each mobile
home.
The NAACP Legal
Defense and Educational
Fund, Inc. (LDF) is working
with the citizens of Carver
Terrace to challenge the buy­
out of their homes.
The Berrien-Cas -Ven Buren
Private Industry Council recently
was awarded $29,043 Job Trainln
Partnership Act (JTPA) Incentive
Grant, in recognition of outl�
performance in providing job train­
ing ervic to adul and youth.
The Incentive Grants arc given to
Service Delivery Area (SDAa)
which meet or exceed state and
federal tandards, according to State
Labor Director Lowell Perry.
Incentive grants may be used to
offer more training or to fund
specific local pecial projec . The
amount of the grant i determined by
a combination of the SDA' succe
in spending its regular JTP A funding
and by the ucce of its participants
in finding and keeping employment.
In addition to the federal stand­
ards, the Michigan Department of
Labor added an additi • 1'(\:
• 1he expenditure of 85 �v,.",. ....... .J.I>t
Title IIA funding allocati �
meeting 4 of the 6 federal standards.
An SDA also may earn incentive
grant amounts by meeting and/or ex­
ceeding the federal and state stand­
ards.
By BERNICE BROWN
Benton Harbor has been
designated as a Federal Weed and
Seed communi ty.
The program is a Republican
approach to social ills that
criminalizes poverty, according to
many observers in the African
American community.
The program bas been instituted
in Los Angeles ·and is under barn
attack there for putting police over
social programs.
At a press conference held in
Benton Harbor City Hall November
16, Mayor Emma Hull joined with
City Manager John Elliott, U.S. Rep.
. Fred Upton, U.S. Attorney John
Smietanka and ot wa� and . Y
officials in announcing that Benton
Harbor is now officially recognized
by the Department of Justice as being
a "Weed and Seed Community."
In a letter to Smietanka, U.S.
Attorney General William P. Barr,
Washington, D.C., Barr said, "Based
upon your representation and the
documentation of the strategy, the
requisite elements of the Weed and
Seed strategy are being implemented
in your district. These efforts
preliminarily meet the parameters
justifying official recognition of the
City of Benton Harbor and
Township of Benton as a Weed and
Seed Communi ty."
designated a a Weed and Seed
community, funding i still not
available for the program at this
time.
According to Upton, hopefully
funds will be available early next
year.
Smietanka said it was the death of
Tamika Swanson, a 16 year-old
Benton Harbor High School tudent
that was killed in 1990 by a stray
bullet from a gang fight, that
motivated the community to do
something about the problems of
drugs and gangs in the city.
Smietanka is the former Berrien
County prosecutor. Among his first
tasks as Federal District Attorney
was to l)ring indictment against
former Mayor Joel Patterson and
City Attorney K. Morri Gavin, both
African Americans. Both were
cleared of all charges, but uffered
financiall y, emotionall y and
politically.
Upton said both U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development,
Department of Justice arid
Agriculture have priority for Weed
and Seed designated communities.
Early this year the Congress
appropriated $500 million subject to
authorization for Weed and Seed
communities, but the authorization
was vetoed by President George
Bush.
"On the first day that Congress is
back in session, on January 5, I will
be introducing legislation to free up
those funds, to make sure that the
funds are in fact authorized," Upton
said.
"I'm convinced that this program,
Weed and Seed, has very strong
bipartisan support, .both in the
Senate, as well in the House," Upton
aid.
"This is what we wanted from the
beginning, people coming together
and working together to make things
happen for people in the
community," Mayor Hull said. "We
are grateful for the things that have
happen and we are going to continue
to do these kind of thing , working
together to make Benton Harbor
move forward."
BENTON HARBOR City
Manager John Elliott stated that the
Weed and Seed program i , "a step
in the right directions of
revitalization for Benton Harbor. It
al ,0 focuses Benton Harbor as a
model city and one more step in
moving ahead in doing orne things
that would make some people
excited about the city once more.
The bottom line is, together we all
can make a difference," Elliott aid.
Upton said there's a way to go,
but with the designation approval b
the Alto y Ge 'Office i
big step in the future of Bent
Harbor and Benton Township.
, Upton said two years ago when
the crime and drug task force was
formed, outsiders where telling them
what to do, but this was different
because, "it was the insiders, the
people that lived .here in the
community that put together their
hard work and their toil to really get
something done. They wanted to
identify thing that were working, .
and they did. They wanted to build
upon things that were working and
they did."
"The proposal that was submi tted
to the Justice Department is a home
grown product wi th people here
looking for things where we ought to
improve on, and did a very good
job," Upto!' added.
M rey M morlal
to develop
ateliite e mpu
The Mercy Memorial Medical
Center Board of Directors recently
announced plans to purcha e 20
acres at the corner of Hollywood
Road and Maiden Lane in St. Joseph
Township for the development of a
satellite �pus .
• . 0 pswh A. W r-:
�p�ident lAkclaoo Regional
Health System, who 'own and
operates Mercy Memorial Medical
Center in 51. Joseph and Pawating
hospital in Niles, the plans include
relocating the financial, data
processing, management informa­
tion systems, dialysis, and physical
medicine and rehabilitation depart­
ments to everal office/residential
style buildings totaltng approximat -
ly 35,OOO-square feet.
Wasserman said these services
must be moved from Mercy
Memorial campus to make room for
additional patient rooms, to provide
needed private rooms for patients, to
allocate space for other acute-care
services, and to alleviate parkin!
problems at the OOspital ..
Scholarships
available for '
adults at LMC
Start-Up Scholarship for·adults
who are interested in beginning col­
lege, or who have completed less
than 15 college credits, are available
for the winter semester at Lake
Michigan College, according to Syl­
via Coleman, LMC director of finan­
cial aid. The scholarships may be
IN DALlAS, Texas, LOF,
on behalf of· plaintiffs-inter­
venors in California,
Colorado, New York and
North Carolina, filed suit
against the federal govern­
ment for failing to test and
treat poor children for lead
poisoning. LOF seeks testing­
for millions of 'Medicaid­
eligible children nation-wide
who have never been screened
for ead poisoning and others
who have been inadequately
tested.
Studies indicate exposure
to lead lowers IQ, causes
learning disabilities, hearing
impairment and behavior
problems; all of which impede
the life chances of affected
chi ldren. Research has shown
that young adults who- were
exposed to lead early in life
had trouble reading and finish:
ing high school.
This suit comes on the
heels of a major settelment
secured last year by LDF and
others in the landmark case,
Matthews v. Coye. That case
forced the State of California
to screen half a million of its
poorest children for lead
poisoning.
Lead poisoning causes
neurological and physical
damage ranging from learning
disabilities to cancer. It is this
nation's number one environ­
mental health hazard for
children, with two-thirds of
inner city African American
children being victims. Al­
though lead poisoning is in­
curable, it is absolutely
preventable.
To halt lead poisoning and
other environmental insults,
there must be a concerted
strategy encompassing public
See JUSTICE, 810
"COMMUNITIES SUCH as
Benton Harbor, where the local
officials, re idents and the private
sector are joining in a partnership
with the federal government to
reclaim their neighborhood,
deserve to be officially recognized
for their efforts in implementing the
Weed and Seed strategy."
"I congratulate the City of Benton
Harbor and the residents of this
neighborhood' for being willing to
, figbt back against the scourge of
violent crime and drug dealing."
Although Benton Harbor is
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DDA has no quorum
By BERNICE BROWN
Benton Harbor' Downtown
Development 'Authority and Tax In­
crement Finance Authority Boards
could not conduct any business at
their regular monthly meeting,
November 17, due to lack of a
quorum.
Present at the meeting were,
Chairman Christopher Brooks, Jim
McConville, William Nichols, AI
Busby, Jim Cronk and James Brown.
Absent were, Mayor Emma Hull,
J. Gardner Phillips, Dorothy Ran­
dolph and newly appointed mem­
bers, Sherron Weeks, Bobby Jordan
and Richard Ray. .
Board members have a fifteen
minute grace period before meetings
can be canceled. The Chairman' can­
celed the meeting at 4:45 p.m.
'The next DDA/TIFA meeting
will be Tuesday, December �5, at
4:30 p.m.
now
4 Home
Delivery.
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