Mayor Dennis Donohue picks Police Cmdr. Trevor Iida as community safety director.

Despite its daily struggle to control gang violence, Salinas doesn’t fund any programs geared to keep kids out of gangs and rehabilitate young criminals. Mayor Dennis Donohue says it’s time for the City to address that fundamental failing.

Starting next fiscal year, Donohue says, the City should invest at least $1 million to fund gang intervention and prevention programs. While the Salinas Police Department and the Monterey County Gang Task Force do a good job suppressing crime, he says, “this is a community that is weak in intervention in terms of the breadth of our programs.”

Following a surge of recent shootings, Donohue is advancing his gang-intervention strategy. It begins with the creation of a position to ensure that city departments work together to prevent gang violence. Donohue has selected Police Cmdr. Trevor Iida to fill the new post of Community Safety Director. The City Council is expected to confirm the appointment on Tuesday, March 20. The council plans to fund the job, along with an economic development position, using $1 million set aside last month.

On March 27, Donohue will host a town hall meeting at Sherwood Hall to introduce Iida and members of the Community Safety Alliance, a network of civic, business and faith groups.

The mayor says he hopes that by June the alliance will have a blueprint to guide gang intervention efforts. “We are going to engage the council,” he says, “we are going to engage the community, and we are going to have a plan.”