Community Services

By Marnie Sheehan Carter

As the City of Concord works through this fiscal crisis, the City Council will need to work with a renewed commitment in collaboration with youth, families, and community services to develop guiding principles at a time of increasingly limited resources. Carter for Concord's campaign position statement as to why we believe that support for community programs that define our character and the volunteers who make them happen must be a priority for the City of Concord is as follows.

The citizens of Concord want safer parking areas and sidewalks; well-maintained hedges, light poles and bike lanes. While areas of our City have improved with a previously funded community development grant, continued small efforts by the City Council and the Neighborhood, Community Services and Education Committee can add up to a large improvement in the neighborhood and streets. There are community services that want to work with the City to help to prioritize short and long term solutions. We need to work together for a better City and improved neighborhoods.

Concord has experienced growth of a large population of individuals that are hurting in our community. This segment of our population is comprised of homeless as well as recently released parolees and substance abusers to probation halfway houses throughout our City. Over and over again, we see the problems that this is creating for our neighbors as well as the small business owners of our community. We all know that homelessness is due to the economy, lack of jobs, poor education and other issues. The driving force keeping many (not all) of the people you see in Concord's streets is narcotics/alcohol addiction. Our City Council needs to step up to work with local service providers in the area that have programs designed to assist individuals with beating their addictions and reintegrating into a healthy lifestyle. Change 4 Real Change, a new City program designed to support services for the homeless in Concord and discourage panhandling launched this past June. This voucher and spare change collection program is a good first step in making changes so that those affected can face their behavior and lifestyle and avoid a continued choice of life on the streets.

State budget cuts have threatened programs for our City's seniors and youth which have caused Concord to determine how to provide better community services at less cost. We need to develop a model for our City that will be efficient and provide high-quality inclusive services that are not based on a "fee-for-service" or "pay to play" approaches. Marnie Sheehan Carter and the Carter for Concord Campaign promote improved City partnership with the Concord Youth Council. Youth Councils have the potential to encourage comprehensive youth development systems in our local community. A series of partnerships or connections among City leadership and organizations to plan and deliver services based on youth development principles to all young people in the community has many advantages, including: reduced duplication of effort, leveraging of community resources more effectively, providing a continuum of support to all youth, and building community-wide commitment to youth as valuable cultural and economic resources. Without a distinct focus on youth in our community, it is unlikely that many members of our future work force will focus on our community as adults or spend the time required to continue building the very programs that could have benefited them.

The City of Concord Code Enforcement Department has suffered greatly with losses in personnel to such an extent that the City of Concord staff is at 1/3 of the personnel necessary to operate in a city of our size. How our city presents itself to the world is vital to changing our perception to those around us and continued engagement of our citizens. We need to work to restore areas of City services in order to keep Concord clean, graffiti free and functioning at a quality level.

The City of Concord needs to focus on promoting community services that serve our local area in conjunction with careful assessment of our community needs and effort toward partnering with local agencies to match citizen needs with the appropriate services. Community services should not suffer under City leadership. Concord has done a wonderful job in maintaining the look and vitality of the City in a time of struggle with the benefit of the services provided by our City employees. These efforts should not be abandoned. It is the position of Marnie Sheehan Carter and the Carter for Concord Campaign that unmet needs of our community must be met in true collaboration with City leadership and should remain a priority for the successful functioning of the City of Concord.

Thank you for your time and consideration to this important issue.