City taps The Village Project to open new Seaside Youth Resource Center.

In March, 19-year-old Seaside resident Khaleel Johnson was gunned down in Sand City. Police believe the killing is gang-related.

Johnson’s murder underscores the need for a new approach. On July 2, Seaside City Council approved an agreement making The Village Project, a local nonprofit providing counseling and other services to underserved people, interim operator of the new Seaside Youth Resource Center.

Concerned by a surge in gang shootings and homicides – police believe seven of Seaside’s 12 homicides since 2012 are gang-related – Seaside Police Chief Vicki Myers partnered with other community organizations to form a blue-ribbon task force on the problem.

“There needed to be a concerted effort on the part of the community to intervene and reduce this gang violence,” task force member Mel Mason says.

Under the leadership of Mayor Pro Tem Ian Oglesby and city Violence Prevention Manager Theresa Zamora, the task force landed a $1.3 million, three-year grant from the California Gang Reduction, Intervention, and Prevention (CalGRIP). The grant funds the creation of the Seaside Youth Resource Center to help reroute gang-involved youth to safer paths.

A building at Noche Buena Street and Broadway Avenue, which the city partially owns, will eventually house the new center, once a full purchase and upgrades are finished in about eight months. In the meantime, the center will lease space from The Village Project, just a few blocks away on Broadway.

Mason, The Village Project’s executive director, is the resource center’s temporary manager. For the space rental, utilities, custodial and Mason’s compensation, the city is paying just under $2,600 per month.

Mason is hiring two gang and violence intervention specialists to run the center, which will include a behavioral health therapist, a probation officer and a school resource officer.