Posts Tagged ‘Summer Youth Employment Program’
These D.C. Summer Jobs Are Smokin’ (Marijuana)
Gotta love the Summer Youth Employment Program: Nothing like a hard day’s work to teach kids a thing or two about holding a job and personal responsibility and keep them away from things like gangs, violence, and illicit substances.
Well, gangs and violence, anyway.
A City Desk reader captured this sight with a cell phone cam yesterday morning, around 10:30 a.m., on the 1500 block of Marion Street NW:
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Why the City Is Promoting Conservation With 100,000 Paper Doorhangers
Plenty of folks at this point (hat tips: Scott’s Take, DCist) have pointed out that the Mayor’s Conservation Corps—part of the city summer jobs program—have spent their first days on the job handing out paper doorhangers.
Many of them have ended up on the street and sidewalks, and then there’s the obvious irony of promoting a green initiative by distributing tons of thick paperstock around town.
LL called up the D.C. Department of the Environment, which runs the Green Summer Jobs Program, and asked spokesperson Alan Heymann about the doorhangers and the ironical elements at play.
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Barry: Expect Weekly Hearings on Summer Jobs
This morning, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty provided yet another update on the status of his beloved summer jobs program. Nearly 24,000 kids have signed up, “the highest level of enrollment in decades” with a “record number of job opportunities,” according to a news release.
Fenty has committed to accommodating all comers, even though last year’s program went more than $30 million over budget under a similar lack of constraints.
In recent days, the spiritual godfather of D.C. summer jobs has made it clear he doesn’t share Hizzoner’s expansive view of the program.
“I’m not going to participate in this craziness,” says Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry, who started the Summer Youth Employment Program as mayor in 1979. It’s widely regarded as one of Barry’s political masterstrokes, engendering almost unanimous and endless goodwill from an entire generation of Washingtonians.
Barry, however, is not sold on Fenty’s plans, he tells LL.
Fenty: Full Steam Ahead on Summer Jobs
Make no mistake: The summer jobs program is gonna work this year.
Just look at the program’s Web Site: “Welcome to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s Summer Youth Employment Program for 2009,” reads the banner headline.
Politicians are know for attaching their names to everything in sight, but not usually to programs which nine months ago had imploded in a cloud of overspending and fraud. Others might have scaled back expectations, but not Fenty. At a press conference at Ballou Senior High School this afternoon, he announced it’s full steam ahead on summer jobs.
The details for SYEP 2009, such as they exist so far, are impressive. The registration process is online-only.Three times as many slots have been offered by private employers. All sorts of database checks are in place to prevent mass fraud. A top private contractor will be handling payroll. And 3,000 kids have already signed up.
