Kings, Jackson community centers bustling|[5/03/06]

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Cuts in hours, budget haven’t affected interest.

Jessie Williams has been walking from his house to the nearby Kings Community Center on North Washington Street to play basketball for well over a decade, since he was in fourth grade.

So, what changes has the now-25-year-old seen in the center since it shut down its day program and moved from the city of Vicksburg’s defunct Department of Human Services to its Parks and Recreation Department just more than six months ago?.

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&#8220The only thing I see different is the times the center’s open have changed,” Williams said.

The Kings Center opens at 3 p.m. now, not at 9 a.m., since it no longer operates its day program for suspended students, the casualty of fewer expulsions and the rise of a similar program within the Vicksburg Warren School District. But, along with Kings’ downtown partner, the Jackson Street Community Center, there’s still basketball, still after-school tutoring and still access to computers, weight equipment and meeting space.

And, according to program coordinators, still plenty of interest from kids and adults.

&#8220The centers are doing extremely well. They’re being used,” said Joe Graves, head of Parks and Recreation, who estimated 25 to 50 kids daily are in each center’s after-school program and similar numbers for adults after 6 p.m. &#8220We haven’t really made any changes. Everything was going great and we’re just trying to carry on the good things they started.”

The allocation for the Jackson Street Center plummeted from fiscal year 2005 to FY06, from $234,720 to $3,130. That money is used for cleaning and maintenance, Graves said, with wages for the centers’ three on-site coordinators, including Graves, coming from Parks and Recreation.

The Kings Center’s budget was cut almost in half, from $258,200 to $149,580. The city is in negotiations to lease the former elementary school to Triumph Ministry Inc., a not-for-profit corporation affiliated with Triumph M.B. Church, headquartered nearby on Pittman Road. The Rev. Larry Nicks, senior pastor of the church, said the group hopes to bring after-school tutoring, athletic, GED and adult education programs, computer training and health services, including a collaboration with the Hinds County Comprehensive Health Clinic to provide reduced price or free treatment, to the center. The lease agreement could be a done deal within the next seven days, he said.

&#8220We have a tremendous desire to get our kids off the street and give them something very productive to do, and not just playing basketball but cultural enrichment,” said Nicks, who hopes the center will also serve senior citizens. &#8220A lot of it is what we do with our ministry already, and the space allows us to do it on a bigger scale.”

Education and after-school programs at the centers were among the primary responsibilities of DHS, cut from the municipal budget that went into effect Oct. 1. Mayor Laurence Leyens led the push to dissolve the department’s nine positions, saying the city &#8220is not an employment agency” and citing the school district’s increased role in taking on students with discipline problems as evidence of the department’s redundancy. Leyens estimated DHS cost the city about $450,000 in wages.

The school district is serving about 168 such students at Grove Street, said Superintendent James Price, as many as two dozen of whom would have been sent by a youth court judge to the Kings Center before the district’s Grove Street operation was an option. Price agreed that the school district’s program eliminated the need for a similar city-run program for students with discipline problems, especially, he said, when the number of discipline problems has dramatically decreased.

The number of students the district expels has dropped dramatically in two years, Price said, from around 45 to two in 2004-05.

&#8220We just don’t expel students that way now,” he said. &#8220We deal with the problems before they get to that stage we have to expel them.”

One of several vocal opponents of dissolving Human Services was North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield, who said he had heard mostly positive things about the centers since their move to Parks and Recreation but lamented the loss of the day program for suspended students.

&#8220From all the information I received from the public it was a very much-needed program,” Mayfield said. &#8220But thus far it seems as if the programs (Parks and Recreation) has instituted are doing well. I feel that if they weren’t we would have heard from the public.”

After-school attendance has been steady, said program coordinator Mary Galtney, who rotates shifts at both centers and the Senior Citizens Center on Walnut Street, and despite the worries of some of the regulars, she said none of the centers are in any danger of being shut down.

&#8220This is all we have to do up here,” said Williams during a workout in the Kings Center weight room last week. &#8220If they close this down, there’s no telling what will happen to these kids.”