play, generally speaking, then we usually hang around for another 15 or 20 minutes so we usually get about 50 minutes and that's all we can get. again, a lot of these things are just based, we might not see a whole lot of schools but he has a whole other job. we used to go out and do two performances a week so we were doing 16 or 18 but it's just -- with the manpower shortage, since 2007 our theater department has lost like 40 percent of what we usually do. i know that noel's department, he's lost people and programs and hopefully things are going to get better. >> it says a lot for the program when in rough budget times, we're still around. so we meet a lot of students. >> success stories of kids who

were going the wrong way? >> as a matter of fact, the first couple semesters, where we did a break out session, where we break out with the teachers and their students and one of the actual kids said, you know, something is going on in my house, my brother's a gang banger, the house is abusive, and that breakout session, that child actually reached out to us. we were able to get dps to actually pull her out of her house so it's a good venue for those kids to express that. >> i had a fourth grader who told me, he said if they think i can do better in the world. he was a fourth grader, they can feel sad or they can feel it's not good, but i had a

fourth grader look at me and say, we are doing a lot of good. >> my question was also already been answered. has your presentation had any impact on the level of gravanis? >> that's something we have to measure. and that's something, that's when we actually go into the elementary schools because, you know, the kids, i don't know about san francisco but in sacramento, a lot of the kids that we catch are adults. they are from 18 to 27. so if they are going to do it, i consider that a lost cause. they are going to make up their mind whether to go through with it or run. i'm trying to reach the kids who are small that we can plant that seed, you know, later on when they get seduced

in junior high or high school, hey, let's go smoke some bud and tag the freeway i want to plant that seed early. there's going to be a couple years down the road where hopefully we'll see it go down. >> i just want to say, first of all, you guys did a really good job. (applause). >> how do you get grants to spend money on something like this that is very soft and hard to measure. >> how we presented it or i presented it was we can sit there and hook and book, arrest them, we can do the suppression all the time, but there is no community outreach and that's what the whole hook is, getting

out and doing the outreach to the kids. so, i mean, yes, prevention, that's the tack we took and it was a good deal because these guys, bill, this is not their main thing. the main thing is being a leader and presenting this message but at the end of our presentation to the fte, at the end of the semester when we complete something, they get a scholarship at the end. so that money goes back into the community. the kids spend it in school or out in the community so it just revolves. so it's a win-win for us. the money gets paid to these guys and they put it back in the community and when they walk around and some of the kids, all the kids are local, they will see the kids at burger king, hey, i saw you guys. so these guys are real in the community. >> it's also for us that a lot

of these people here have done this many times. i know it's not for the money because it's not that much. they get about $350, something like that, we measure it by the hours they show up, if they did a rehearsal or a performance, obviously they're not going to get that much if they don't show up every time, but it's way below minimum wage. >> that's right. >> we usually go to -- i have children and we usually go to my kid's school. i see it every time i good to school because they remember me, what's going on with them. i see it change myself. >> did a guy actually fall from the freeway? >> yeah, you may not be surprised but that kind of thing does happen fairly regularly. >> crazy. >> i have a question about the

(inaudible) funding issues, do you have any intention to fund more so you can expand, things like this. >> all i can tell you is that those decisions are made by, you know, in our department, in our division, in our campus, in the community college community -- i'm sure there's a much better word -- the recommendations come down from the lao, have you ever heard of the lao, the legislative analysis office? they are a nonprofit. anybody here from the lao? they make recommendations how to streamline spending and one of the things they kind of turn a

blind eye to things like this because these are classes that are what we call repeatable. kind of like if you go to a college and you want to play football, you are probably going it take the same class -- when you are on the football team you have to enroll in something so they end up enrolling in these classes over and over. a lot of these guys maxed out doing theater at city college so they sign a waiver form to be volunteers. i don't know, does that answer your question? >> one question, now that i know about the legislative, i was wondering about this program when they start thinking about where the money should go. >> unfortunately, i think so yes. on my college campus it's

highly revered. i'm a rock star with my students for this. >> as far as the city is concerned, too, because we take that money and we dump it into the city college and it gets to these guys and then it gets to the community. what i tend to do is when we go to the schools, it's a perfect -- it's a lot of good pr, the principals and whoever is there to write letters to say, hey, this is a great program, please continue and at the end of the session we always have a survey tool that i ask the teachers and administration to fill out. and then at the end of the year when we do the end of our run, i'll submit that packet to our city council and say, look, we have visited these many schools, this is the response that we got from teachers and parents, you know. this is how many students that we did on this outreach and hit them with the numbers it would be, like,

oh, thumbs up, the school wrote us a letter, our da, our district attorney to come see us, she wrote us a letter, so that's how you fund it. >> what he's mentioning is the former chancellor of the los rios college district, the former chancellor is now the statewide chancellor of community colleges, brad ferris who recently retired and now is the state chancellor of community colleges. he came out and saw us, surprised us one day. i felt like one of those dogs that won't stop rubbing against your leg. he really liked it.

>> i don't see why not, we want to definitely express a word. a question over there? >> when i first read the description of the play tonight i was thinking in my mind, well, maybe i can skip it .s i didn't see what i would get out of it but you guys are 100 percent right on (applause) i been tracking gravanis for about 3 or 4 years. i'm not a tagger, a kid got shot, he is handicapped right now, another

one shoplifting, one got stuck, they had to come get him, he was 12 years old. this young kid, it happened -- that's just in the last year and a half i've experienced that. 12 years old to 60 are people right from the streets of oakland and for us in the summer we were thinking about an outreach program for kids and we brought this to the oakland task force and one of the issues was an outreach for kids. and first a group of people, council members and code enforcement thought it was kind of a silly idea but it is very important. if we can catch somebody to have another option, because gravanis does lead, it is a great -- a gateway to crime. i know

taggers who are stealing and doing other crimes. i know people that have $450,000 worth of crime. >> hubris, we call it. >> i do talk to the taggers and stuff. you guys are right on and i am going to try to get oakland to do this kind of stuff. there's plenty of talented people, plenty of rappers in oakland. you guys could go back and brain wash my people to go to the schools and do this program. have you come back. >> reed cameron has been taping this whole thing. >> you guys are 100 percent, 200 percent right on. >> thank you. >> a general question on the

budget, the budget item eye. >> we probably spend about $30,000 a year, so one fte what is that, a utility worker? so, you know, that's probably what we spend. >> have you (inaudible). >> are you talking about any of the kids here have experience with gravanis? i've been taking it off for 26 years. >> you know what? as a matter of fact one of our players about a year ago, he actually was a soldier in iraq, 18, 19, he went to iraq. the deal is

he gt busted on a misdemeanor felony for gravanis so the military would not let him go to the military. and so he made a deal with the district attorney and he actually was in our play for a semester, did that community service, paid his 10 grand in restitution and went into the military. so, yes, we did have one experience within the cast at that time. >> any questions? >> i don't know if i need a mic. i want to encourage other cities that want this program to consider the program, it was

fantastic. it was fantastic. i'm wondering if you thought about taking it into high school. >> junior high. >> the thing is we were thinking about that, but my whole thing is planting the seed at elementary school because, you know, when you get 12, 13, you get this attitude and they say, like, when you are 5 years old you develop penalty. for us, we wanted to have that opportunity to catch them young, it plant that seed. so when they do progress from middle school to high school, hopefully it will sprout. i'm not going to mess with no gang, i'm not going to get messed up with that, gang stuff, you get beat up, get killed. >> i personally think the older kids, junior high, late

junior high, high school, like my daughter is in 10th grade. and she'll be in somebody's face. those kids, they kind of already made up their minds. that's one of the things i got out of that. plus we go to middle school and we'll do a show, we started off by going to what was it kit carson middle school and we did the 7th graders one day and the 8th graders the other day and it was, like, 500 students. we were outnumbered when they are watching you, it's easier to make fun and that's kind of how it went. we love the 5th and 6th graders because they eat it up and they want to talk to us. there's a lot of kids that are not going to do it and there's a bunch of kids that they are going to do it no matter what,

but it's those kids in the middle, if we can get it while they're on the fence, i think that's where it's more effective with the 5th and 6th graders. >> this form of outreach for anything else? >> we kind of do in parks and rec. back when i was 19 was parks and rec. as a matter of fact, i wrote that play 15 years ago and it's been sitting in my desk for 15 years until somebody said we got a little bit of money. so somebody wrote the play, sent it to me, it was the 60's version. >> guy who grew up in redding, california. >> i kind of rewrote it, i was 90's version. and so i ran an anti-gravanis, i hire 14, 15,

16-year-olds and we go out in the weekends to abate gravanis and i floated this idea to my kids, they are interns now, they're 20, i'm old. they wrote the 2000 verse, that lingo. >> we keep asking them, if that doesn't sound right, give me a g-rated version that we can take to the schools. >> the new answers are so great. >> it's like jimi hendrix. never the same way twice. >> a lot of organic happenings back in the 70's. >> in response to the high school, going after high

school, i think that that is a great idea. i remember high school. >> yeah, me too. >> it wasn't that long ago for me and i remember not caring. it's not that i didn't understand the message but it was that i didn't care enough that the message went right over my head and through my ears. elementary school kids don't do that. believe it or not they will pause and they will cry. and middle school. you guys know that. they understand, the message sinks in. i do encourage lots of communities it try and take it to their high schoolers and i don't mind being pointed out and booed off the stage. >> yes, you do. >> that is the risk that you take. and then the response to the question about whether there has been a higher impact, if we've seen any changes, i've

been in the show since the beginning, i missed a couple semesters since starting but when we go back to the schools we have kids coming back to you, i remember you, i remember you, i had a few kids say, yeah, i wanted to write on the desk but i didn't. something as simple as drawing on your desk is gravanis because there are people paid to clean off the desk and now they ain't doing that, the fact that when we go to these schools and when we see these kids they always have answers ready for us as far as the last time they saw us, after the show, oh, yeah, i'm not going to do this. >> every semester. and there's some schools that won't let us come in. it's really strange. oh, no, our kids don't do that. it's true.

>> i've been in the show plenty of times, starting in 06 -- it was 06 -- and i've done this show numerous times. and don't get it twisted, yes, we are in sacramento and i have been staying in the good part of the city, you know what i mean? and three different bad parts of the city, we've gone to, probably, 6 schools in those bad cities and occasionally you get those, sometimes you see those kids that when they are coming into the cafeteria or the gym, multi purpose room, what have you, they are always like talking the whole time, you know? and still to this day i see like three of those kids from those

kids that are not -- what can i say -- they are not that bad any more. they are not that bad. i see them, they are cool, they are not making no bad choices. they remember me. oh, i'm making right choices, i'm making right choices. it makes you feel good that you reached out and you got hold of somebody, somebody that was probably on the wrong path on to the right path, you know what i mean? >> was the play based on characters in real life? >> yeah, some of them are. obviously like ivo, evolution, we wanted to make him the leader because he evolves throughout the play and teaches the rest of the kids. damage,

the antagonist, the joker, crash, officer frank, who speaks frankly, we wanted to do the elementary school but do the confront thing. also, too, you know, the neighbors that unfortunately i'm a code enforcement officer so i have to deal with citing property owners even though they didn't do it. so i get the backlash from the property owners, you know? i've been here 5 times, call the cops. this is what we can do. so definitely those are the characters in our community. >> to give you guys experience how we do this, we can have the guys come out, hand out the goodies. if you guys can get people, then noel

and i can --. >> thank you so much. thank you (applause).