The lack of summer jobs for teens is a hot-button issue in a city wary of a violent summer. In the first installment of a two-part series, the Reporter talks to city officials, community leaders, and business leaders to gauge their concerns.

By Jim O'Sullivan

From the podium in the lobby of Boston's tallest building, the Mayor endeavored to stir "the sleeping giants." He cajoled and wheedled and double-dog-dared. He wouldn't name names &endash;"They know who they are" &endash; but he was blunt in his criticism. "They're walking away from the city," he said.

"They" are the downtown business corporations to whom Tom Menino turned for dollars to lure the Democratic Party to Boston in 2004. But the convention isn't until next summer. This summer, Menino is job-hunting.

"We're in dire need for summer jobs," Menino pleaded Tuesday, speaking at an event that recognized John Hancock Financial for reportedly ponying up employment and tuition for 200 Boston public schools teens. Hancock, FleetBoston, State Street, and Mass General are among the big companies that city officials say are answering the Mayor's call. In an effort to bolster teen employment by the July 7 date that experts say is a crucial deadline, Menino pledged to match dollar-for-dollar, up to a $250,000 total, "any company that steps forward over the next week."

But, Menino told the Reporter, Boston is still short almost 2,500 jobs for city teens.

Josh Bruno, whose role as assistant director of the Boston Private Industry Council puts him on the front lines of matching teens with businesses, reports that the summer job program his organization helps the city run doled out 4,000 jobs last summer. In 2001, it was 5,000.

"We are all definitely in a depression, but for the teen job market, it's really stone cold," Bruno said. "It's like a depression for them."

Bruno points to a "trickle-down" job market that sees adults and college kids, for lack of higher-paying gigs, snatching up jobs in retail that once were the kingdom of teenagers looking to pick up some spending cash.

Worse, Menino said Tuesday, 25 percent of working teens use their paychecks to help the family pay bills.

"I'm not working for clothes," said Marlon Cook, 17, of Dorchester, who plans to attend UMass-Dartmouth in the fall. "I have to pay for college next year in the fall. That's why it's important for me."

"I think a job gives a kid some money to hopefully use wisely on themselves or their family or their education," said Mike Joyce, program director at Dorchester's Daniel Marr Boys and Girls Club. "It gives them something to put on their resume, gives them a position of leadership. I think it pays so many dividends."

And without jobs for kids … from City Hall to the local precincts to the activists to the merchants to the kids themselves, there's concern for a summer whose streets offer problems instead of paychecks.

"When a kid doesn't have a job, they hang around street corners, and we know what hanging around street corners means," said Menino.

Leonard Lee, director of Dorchester's Neighborhood Service Center, said he's afraid that the funding for summer jobs won't appear until "kids start killing each other."

"It's just a tragedy, because some children are going to end up losing their lives because we're reactive instead of proactive."

Cook, who was among the 200 teenagers at Tuesday's John Hancock Scholars event, said, "I think it's going to be a violent summer again. Because in Dorchester, it's just crazy down there."

 The wages of no wages

"It's tough to sit back and make a prediction for how it's going to be. But I can tell you this about measures of prevention: If we get a high-risk kid, that's the kid we want to steer first, get him a job, keep him out of trouble."

Tom Lee, captain of Boston Police Area C-11, sat in the Gibson Street station last week, hitting on the notes of outreach and prevention that mark the Boston Police Department under Menino and Commissioner Paul Evans. Lee spoke about the importance of finding a job for a teenager "possibly on their way, rather than those that have already been grabbed" by gangs.

Addressing the Dorchester Board of Trade at a luncheon this Tuesday, he urged local merchants to provide more jobs for neighborhood teens, putting the local spin on Menino's citywide challenge.

"I would encourage any small businesses in Dorchester that could afford to take a teenager on, give the kid something to do," Capt. Lee told the Reporter last week. Acknowledging that the slow economy made hiring extra help a tough request, Capt. Lee said he had attended a crime summit meeting at headquarters with Menino and other local leaders, and that the outlook then was bleak.

Added jobs, said the C-11 commander, are an integral part of preventing the type of violence that marred last summer, notably the shooting death of 10-year-old Trina Persad at the corner of Blue Hill Avenue and Quincy Street, and a rash of police shootings. Although the city's violent crime rate in 2002 dropped five percent to its lowest point in 31 years, too many bullets had Bostonians fearing a return to the gang violence of the late-1980s and early-1990s.

"I don't think it's going to be like the early-'90s, but I think it's going to be a lot of kids trying to figure out what to do," said Leonard Lee, who remembered his first summer job coming through the city when he was 14. This year, Lee, whose center is part of Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD), predicted an outbreak of violence in the late summer and autumn because of tensions escalating during the dog days.

Bill Celester, retired now, was a deputy superintendent in the BPD from 1985-1991 before leaving to become commissioner in Newark, NJ. Last year, after Trina Persad's shooting, he stood up at a community meeting in Don Muhammad's Mosque on Washington St. and announced the formation of an ad hoc group of retired public safety officials who could devote time and expertise to areas that current law enforcement couldn't cover. In an interview last week, he said the group, , is now 50 strong, and guarded about this summer.

Celester said the early warning signs are there this summer, and that, "I'm very worried, we all are, that we're going to be in a very bad situation."

 "The most important thing"

There's no shortage of blame and no shortage of its distribution. The economy is the easy culprit, but Menino is having none of that. "Some people in the past have used the tough economic times as an excuse to walk away from important commitments," he said at Tuesday's press conference, then praised those whom he said had not. Later, Menino thanked Local 103, which has promised 10 summer jobs to Boston teens.

Others, like Bruno, are turning to mom-and-pop businesses for help. "We really need small- and medium-size businesses to step up," he said. "We're not seeing much movement, for the obvious reasons."

Last week, before Menino's Hancock Tower press conference, the Dorchester Neighborhood Service Center's Lee fingered the Mayor, saying, "I think the Mayor's waiting for something to explode. You know, they find money for other things, I don't see why they can't find funding for the summer job piece."

Menino bristled at the charge, demanding, "Why don't they go after the state? The state has walked away from it totally. The federal government has walked away from it totally."

Leonard Lee, who said he had supported Mitt Romney's 2002 gubernatorial campaign, had harsher words for the Governor.

"I think our governor could care less about this community," Lee said. "I don't believe he has a true concern for this community."

But Romney aides said that Boston's $480 million local aid package should be channeled more toward summer jobs. "One would believe that this money could help support jobs for students," a Romney aide said. "That should be [Boston's] highest priority."

Menino insists it is: "The most important thing is to put young people to work."

"He is trying his best," said a source familiar with the job placement process. "This remains a priority for him &emdash; more so even this year &emdash; and he is our biggest job recruiter."

"They're not bad kids"

And blame, thus far, has failed to line any pockets for Boston teens. Said Bruno, "I'm always optimistic, but I'm very concerned right now."

Concerns from most corners are that a shortage of summer jobs leave teenagers with free time and strapped for cash.

Marlon Cook has a job; he'll busy himself with office work at the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA), a Dorchester-based advocacy group aimed at redressing another nettlesome worry for the city. And a lot of his friends have jobs, Cook noted, adding that he recognizes the importance of employment for people his age.

"It'll help kids from being on the street, selling and stuff," he said.

"These kids wouldn't be in trouble if they had something to do," said Capt. Lee. "It's getting them off the corner. They're not bad kids."

Getting them off the corner is the tough part, then. And with an uncooperative economy, the corner might provide more of a paycheck for many teens than elusive employment.

"Right now, I don't feel the crisis yet, because thankfully it's been quiet so far," Bruno said. "I hope it doesn't take something bad to happen to get people to step up."

Next week: Far from the downtown boardrooms are the neighborhood street corners and parks where kids with free time and little cash flow are likely to spend time. It's also where the trouble happens. The Reporter takes to the streets to get the scoop.