THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 17, 1995 TAG: 9505170099
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT MCCASKEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
In a last-minute decision, the City Council on Tuesday voted to provide funding for the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Life Center, a program to aid underprivileged youth.
The $210,000 for the center will come from $9.4 million in federal community-development grants and will be allocated under Norfolk's 1995-96 Consolidated Plan beginning July 1.
The center, at 350 Campostella Road, was not among the 33 programs recommended by the Planning Commission. But the council, in an informal session earlier in the day, decided to fund it.
Two council members - Mason C. Andrews and G. Conoly Phillips - expressed concerns, however, about the precedent of adding programs to the funding list after the public-hearing process.
``We have a professional planning staff to evaluate these programs,'' Phillips said. ``Groups contacting individual members of council and politicking for their cause will hurt the overall use of funds.''
At the final public hearing on the Consolidated Plan on May 2, the City Council told King center administrators that their application was incomplete. In the past two weeks, center staff members have worked with the planning department to revise the application.
``We identified the specific programs that qualify for community-development grant money from the federal government,'' said Eleanor Collins, executive director of the center. ``We provided the necessary data to satisfy the city.''
Vice Mayor Paul R. Riddick hailed the decision to fund the project.
``I think it's a step forward,'' Riddick said. ``I think this is the first time that these monies have not been completely absorbed by the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority or city administration.''
Mayor Paul D. Fraim said ``the program has a great deal of merit, with a modest funding level.''
To finance the center, funds will have to be shifted from neighborhood improvement projects in Huntersville and Berkley, city administration and the rehabilitation loan program. City planner Juanita Buster said the affected projects will still proceed.
The King program was established in 1986 and has operated out of several locations throughout the city, said Dr. Milton Reid, chairman of the center's board. Funding requests in the past several years had been turned down, Andrews said, in part because the center did not meet federal funding criteria.
``I think it's a good start,'' Reid said. ``It will fill a great need in the community. I think city will see that it's a wise investment in our human resources.''
The center occupies several rooms at a commercial center near the site of the old Giant Open Air Market, south of the Campostella Bridge.
The property is owned by Gideon's Riverside Fellowship church, where Reid is pastor.
The facility has sponsored a few family and youth seminars, Collins said, but the grant will help launch new services, including a youth learning center, a jobs-training program, programs for teen-pregnancy prevention and for teen parenting skills, and youth and adult day centers. ``Without the funding, only the youth learning center would have been provided,'' Collins said.
Activities are scheduled to begin June 12. by CNB