A proposal to host a court diversion program for juvenile offenders at the former J.E. Robins Elementary building has raised concerns from some residents on Charleston's West Side, but the former Robins student and NFL player pushing the idea says he's been denied funding.
Eric Smedley said he got a call Friday from state Department of Health and Human Resources employees saying he wouldn't receive grant money for his nonprofit West Virginia Alternative Measures Program. Smedley said the program, which he's still working to fund, would've started a "restorative justice" program at the school.
Robins, built more than 80 years ago, closed at the end of the 2013-14 school year, and students were transferred to Edgewood Elementary, which opened last school year. Smedley said he was hoping the Kanawha County school board would donate the building for $1, and he could use it, the state funding and his NFL connections to seek more donations from other organizations.
He said he grew up on the West Side and was part of Capital High School's first state football championship team the same year it opened. He later played for the Buffalo Bills from 1996-1999 and the Indianapolis Colts 1999-2000.
"I know Randy Moss," he said of the former NFL player and Rand native. "I played against his older brother."
Smedley said his program would take a "proactive" approach to crime that could keep kids who've committed low- to medium-level offenses out of jail, and would save the state money.
"If I saved one youth, man, if I saved one youth in Kanawha County, I would have made the state its money back," Smedley said.
"We're talking about shoplifting charges, we're talking about simple assaults, we're talking about somebody breaking into somebody's car and stealing property," he said.
Offenders would come to Robins for mediation sessions, where they'd sit down and talk in a group with the victim of their crime or a victim's advocate; their arresting police officer or a liaison officer; their parents; and a community elder, like a pastor. He said this builds the offender's sympathy for his or her victim, but the offender would also have to abide by an agreement stating what the youth must do by a certain date, lest they go back to the courts.
He said youths in the program would also be able to work for minimum wage in the community doing things like picking up garbage and raking leaves in order to pay back harm done to victims - for instance, by working the hours needed to pay back the hundreds of dollars it takes to fix a broken car window. He said he didn't know who would actually provide the money to pay back victims, but he was working on the issue.
Smedley said the youths would only be at the building for the mediation sessions, for dinners in between work at job sites and while awaiting transportation to the job sites. While he was thinking about expanding the program in other ways, it would by no means be a detention facility. He said he was even pushing for a police substation to be located there to ease community concerns, and was thinking about renting out some space for weddings and other events in order to raise money for the idea.
He said he received an email from DHHR on Dec. 30 saying that he'd been awarded funding. When contacted late Friday about the issue, DHHR spokeswoman Allison Adler wrote in an email to the Gazette-Mail that Smedley's application had been reviewed by a team established by the department's Bureau for Children and Families. She wrote that the review found his application "failed to meet the requirements for approval" and that Smedley had been notified of that determination, but her email didn't provide further information.
Smedley said DHHR employees told him they didn't think he had the time to get his program up and running by the time the grant funds were awarded Feb. 1, and were concerned about his budget being changed three times - though he said this was to decrease the requested amount from $140,000 to $110,000. He said that by Friday's call, he had already contacted Kanawha schools Superintendent Ron Duerring saying he got the award.
Kanawha school board member Becky Jordon, who also went to Robins, said Duerring sent board members a memo about the issue, and she distributed the memo to some people in the West Side. She said she's getting a lot of complaints.
"I didn't want something being voted on and approved and later the residents being upset," she said.
Michael Birurakis, one of those who received the letter from Jordon, said his restaurant, the Best of Crete deli, has been in the Charleston area 32 years and has been at its Beech Avenue location, which is a short walk from the former school, for 18 total years. He reopened the West Side location just last year. He also owns four rental homes in the area and his parents also live in the neighborhood.
He said he's been making others in the community aware of the proposal, which he believes would cause property values to drop, and while he supports the program, he thinks it should be centered in a rural or industrial area, not a neighborhood.
"Perception is everything," Birurakis said. "And if people see that here, what perception are they going to have of this neighborhood?"
Reach Ryan Quinn at, ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.