By Rick Rouan, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – Columbus officials are hoping that summer programs help teenagers keep their cool as temperatures rise.
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Columbus Recreation and Parks has turned part of its website into a clearinghouse for information about summer youth programs with organizations throughout the city. City leaders said Tuesday that they want more youths participating to keep them out of trouble.
“Young people are much more likely to be the targets of violence,” Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said. “We also want to make sure the young people have enough constructive, positive, and proactive activities that they don’t get caught up with the wrong people or wrong crowds out there.”
Summer safety has been a running theme at recent city events. Last week, officials announced the city was funding a pilot program to use mental health workers in areas prone to violence.
Homicides in the city already are up in 2017: 55 so far this year compared with 34 at the same point in 2016. In the summer, crime tends to increase.
“We can’t police our way out of this,” Ginther said. “Police and law enforcement cannot make our community safer by themselves. They need the entire community stepping up and supporting it.”
Ginther highlighted several summer programs on Monday. The Columbus Museum of Art offers open studio time in which teenagers can experiment with technology and art at no cost from 4 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays.
The Central Ohio Transit Authority is running its bus service to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium seven days a week now. Rides cost $2 each way and every rider can get a discounted admission to the zoo and Zoombezi Bay. Admission with a zoo bus coupon costs $3 for the zoo and $10 for the water park.