Bob Townley, executive director of Manhattan Youth and a Community Board 1 member, is considering planning a community forum to commemorate the five-year anniversary of September 11, 2001.
If the forum is held, it will evaluate the condition of Downtown children and the mental health services available following 9/11, Townley said.
“I think it’s all about the mental health, to a certain degree,” he said. “It’s important that some people come together as a community, as a family, in difficult times.”
Townley, a C.B. 1 member, spoke about his idea at C.B. 1’s Youth and Education Committee meeting July 26. Several committee members expressed concerns about the sensitivity surrounding 9/11, but committee chairperson Paul Hovitz said they were under no obligation to attend.
“We’re not talking about something that’s forced. We’re talking about a forum that people are voluntarily going to come to or not,” Hovitz said. “I have already volunteered to speak.”
Townley, who said Manhattan Youth, not C.B. 1, would sponsor the event, has strong opinions he hopes will be addressed.
“I feel rather strongly that some of the criticism of government corruption in New Orleans is bad because it makes government more reluctant to help,” he said.
Bringing dozens of mental health professionals into schools to aid children after 9/11 may have created more problems than it solved, Townley added.
“There are professors at Columbia University that speak of mental health providers rushing in after dramatic events doing just as much damage to kids as not,” he said. “That’s what I want to discuss.”
Earlier in the meeting, Townley said the event would not be about mental health.
“This is about the community saying something,” he said.
Townley, who has held small forums of 30 to 50 people on past 9/11 anniversaries, said this event would be larger and might include a potluck dinner. But depending on others’ interest, the forum may not happen at all.
“I’m still doing my research on whether or not we’re going to do it,” he said.
—David Spett
WWW Downtown Express
