Providing services for residents takes more than raw materials and money. It requires leadership and creativity from local government officials, especially when budgets already are stretched. American City & County's Crown Communities Awards recognize those extra efforts from local governments that have lasting effects on residents, businesses and the environment.

Every year, our editors ask subscribers, city and county leaders and associations to nominate projects completed by cities and counties. The eight winners of the Crown Communities Awards for city projects follow in this issue and include Boston; Buffalo, N.Y.; Compton, Calif.; Ogden, Utah; Renton, Wash.; San Diego, Calif.; Sandy Springs, Ga.; and Scottsdale, Ariz. The winners of the county projects were published in the July issue, and, like the city winners, their projects demonstrated creative methods for solving old problems or offering new services to residents.

The entry forms for both categories of 2008 Crown Communities will be available on the American City & County Web site (www.americancityandcounty.com) early next year. Winners of the county awards will be announced in the July issue, and the city winners will be profiled in the December issue.

Partners create safe harbor

Boston

By late last year, youth violence in Boston had increased to troubling rates, attracting the attention of retired advertising executive Jack Connors, who wanted to help. He contacted Mayor Thomas Menino and proposed building a summer camp for inner-city children 11 to 14 years old — those who are too old for other day camps and too young to hold jobs. Menino liked the idea but said the city did not have funds to pay for it.

Connors began raising private contributions to design, build, plan and operate the camp, and scheduled it to open in July 2007, leaving only six months for set up. The city identified Long Island — part of the Boston Harbor Island National Park that was full of scraggly underbrush and rocky shoreline — as the site for the camp and leased the land for $1 a year.

The island is accessible only by a narrow bridge, so all construction materials and equipment had to be barged in. Yet, the 22-acre camp was finished in nearly 100 days, complete with baseball and soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts, a beach and bathhouse, a great hall, vegetable garden, climbing wall and ropes course.

To recruit children who were not eligible for other programs, the city and the Boys & Girls Club of Boston launched a targeted outreach campaign. City staff volunteered to visit more than 2,200 residences in Boston's housing projects to sign up attendees, and police officers walking beats carried camp applications to distribute. Each child was asked to pay $5 to attend one of the two one-month sessions, and the rest of the estimated $1,700 cost per child was covered by donations.

At 8 a.m., July 2, 2007, Camp Harbor View welcomed its first 300 campers, who were bused to the island from neighborhoods across the city. The Boys & Girls Club ran the camp, focusing activities on leadership development, sports and fitness, arts, and environmental education. Campers received three meals a day and were bused back home at 6:30 p.m. each night. “Some of the campers learned to swim for the first time this summer,” says Sarah Zaphiris, a policy advisor to the mayor. “Others, amazingly, had never ridden a bike before. The city provided an instructor and a dozen bikes for a few days, which was one of the most popular activities.”

Last summer, the $11 million Camp Harbor View hosted 600 campers and is set to expand next year with construction of a pool and a pier for boating programs. Some of the children continue to participate in year-round activities designed to steer them away from violence, gangs and drugs.

Agencies/companies involved: Boston Mayor's Office, Boston Centers for Youth & Families, Inspectional Services Department, Boston Public Health Commission, Police Department, Camp Harbor View Foundation, Connors Family Foundation, Boys & Girls Club of Boston, Greater Media, Hill Holiday, Suffolk Construction

Fighting crime, step at a time

Buffalo, N.Y.

When Buffalo, N.Y., Mayor Byron Brown decided to clean up the city, he took to the streets and began addressing problems house by house. He expanded the Save Our Streets (SOS) Task Force, which began conducting “Clean Sweeps” in May 2006 to eliminate crime, vacant buildings and drug houses as well as overgrown lawns, stray animals and gas leaks. While tackling visible problems, the task force also educates residents about city services.

Operation Clean Sweep is part of the mayor's Zero Tolerance plan, which targets drug crime as well as quality-of-life offenses that harm residents and businesses throughout Buffalo. The SOS Task Force, funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, is comprised of city, state and federal law enforcement, government agencies, neighborhood advocacy groups and corporate partners.

During a Clean Sweep event, a multidisciplinary team that may include police officers, fire fighters, and representatives from Rodent Control, the U.S. Marshall's Office, the Buffalo Animal Shelter and the Department of Social Services enters a neighborhood without warning to surprise criminals. In addition to boarding up drug houses and arresting criminals, the team also distributes smoke detectors, removes abandoned cars and identifies housing code violations.

Such a program was desperately needed, says Karen Stanley Fleming, director of urban affairs. “Currently, the percentage of families below the poverty line in Buffalo is 27 percent, giving Buffalo the second-highest poverty rate among major U.S. cities,” she says. “The poverty and blight are exacerbated by the high number of vacant residential structures in Buffalo, which has an estimated 10,000 vacant houses and a vacancy rate in the top three of the nation.”

Buffalo conducted 15 Clean Sweeps in 2006, uncovering 41 suspected drug houses and removing more than 122 tons of debris and nearly 4 tons of tires. In addition, 475 properties were baited for rodents, and 195 smoke detectors were distributed to residents. This year, the city will conduct 18 Clean Sweeps.

The initiative is reaping rewards, Fleming says. Overall crime was down by 7 percent in 2006 versus 2005, and violent crime fell 26 percent through June 2007, compared with the first six months of 2006.

Additionally, Operation Clean Sweep has helped improve communication between the city and residents. “Residents have the chance to interface with city service providers to make service requests and to provide relevant and previously unknown data for law enforcement professionals,” Fleming says.

Agencies/companies involved: Buffalo Division of Citizen Services, Erie County Probation Department, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Attorney's Office, Belmont Shelter Corp., Board of Block Clubs, National Fuel, National Grid Electric Co., Rental Assistance Corp., Time Warner Cable