By Patrick McGroarty
Reporter Staff

Eight Dorchester civic associations sent a letter to city hall Wednesday asking that the developing budget be supplemented with money from the city's Budgetary Fund Balance to support a number of anti-crime measures. Jack Kowalski, president of the Melville Park Association, spearheaded the effort, but removed his name from the letter on Wednesday morning citing a potential conflict of interest given his role on the staff of At-large City Councillor Sam Yoon.

The letter is the product of a meeting held on Wednesday, June 14 at the C-11 police station between Captain John Greland, commander of C-11, Dorchester civic association presidents, City Councillors Charles Yancey and Sam Yoon, and representatives from the offices of several other elected officials.

Kowalski's meeting fell on a busy night with several other neighborhood events occurring simultaneously, which kept City Councillor Maureen Feeney and several elected officials from the State House from attending.

During the two-hour session, Yoon suggested that the most immediately effective tool for reducing violent crime would be to hire a battalion of street workers for the duration of the summer. Yancey, meanwhile, embraced the recurring theory that more police officers equals less crime, and said that C-11 in particular was in need of more officers.

The civic association heads, said Kowalski, weighed suggestions made by Greland, Yancey, and Yoon before finalizing their list of requests. In a letter set to be delivered to Mayor Thomas Menino and the Boston City Council on Wednesday morning, Paul Robinson (chairman of the Melville Park Association's safety committee and lead signer in Kowalski's stead) and seven additional civic associations ask that $6 million from the city's reserve funds be injected into the city budget: $1 million to hire new street workers by July 15, $5 million toward hiring additional police officers.

Yoon said he fully supports the requests made in the Melville Park letter, and believes that other city officials will do the same.

"I know that the administration is already prepared to hear that message, and they're working on it," said Yoon. "Other councillors are prepared to push this as far as it can go."

But Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, said that taking more out of the $54 million reserve fund than the $8 million allotted by the proposed budget might not be advisable.

"While $46 million may sound like a ton, it's a small percentage of the city's $2.4 billion operating budget, and it's important for any large city to retain a certain level of resources, preferably 5 percent to have access to in case of an economic crisis."

The letter orchestrated by Kowalski arrived at city hall exactly one week after another letter, written by Florida Corridor anti-crime activist Barry Mullen, was sent to the Mayor and City Council. In that letter, Mullen and his cosigners threatened to take legal action against the city if funding was not found to support a 1979 city ordinance that states the BPD must have 2,500 officers at all times.

Seth Gitell, the mayor's press secretary, said that the ordinance was never signed by Mayor Kevin White, rendering it effectively null and void. But documents obtained by the Reporter show that any ordinance neither signed nor filed in objection, "Shall be in force on and after the sixteenth day following such presentation."

"I expected [our letter] to be thrown in the trash," said Mullen. "I knew that we'd have to move to the next stage, and it's just sad that private citizens have to spend their own time getting the city to do their job."

Mullen said he plans to begin collecting signatures for a class action lawsuit in the near future. He has not yet found an attorney willing to take the case.