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Overcast Youth agencies ‘held hostage’
Groups rally against county funding cuts; stage symbolic funeral
“You may think it’s a little extreme to come out here with two coffins, but I think this is extreme,” said Thomas Sapp as he stood on the steps of Nassau County Supreme Court in Mineola and pointed to a photo of his late son, Kareem, who was murdered in Uniondale in 2007. “Our youth must come first.”
Sapp was among roughly 150 supporters of organizations such as Struggling To Reunite Our New Generation (STRONG), Freeport Pride, the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center and others who rallied against cuts in funding to Nassau County youth services on Aug. 2 by staging a mock funeral procession that made its way from Hempstead to Mineola, and included two empty coffins and signs bearing the names of numerous organizations that read “R.I.P.”
About 200 supporters also showed up at Monday’s Nassau County Legislature session in an effort to have the cuts restored, with some supporters of STRONG, a gang prevention and intervention agency, tied up to convey the message that youth service agencies are being “held hostage” by County Executive Ed Mangano as political leverage.
Amory Sepulveda, who was paralyzed in a drive-by shooting at age 19 in 1999, as she waited for a cab in Hempstead, said that the county’s youth services are vital. “When I was dropped in the hospital for six months, and then following four years in a nursing home, the only people that came was the youth services,” she said, fighting back tears. “I may not have the ability to walk, but I have the ability to speak up. We have kids losing their lives … we can’t afford to lose anymore.”
In June, Mangano informed 43 private youth agencies — as well as 15 mental-health and addiction-treatment agencies — that have annual contracts with the county that their funding would be eliminated in July. Amid the county’s financial woes, Mangano said that the agencies could avoid the cuts if they could persuade three Democratic lawmakers to side with the County Legislature’s 10 Republicans to approve a measure to borrow $41 million to pay the county’s tax-certiorari debts.
