Best believe, said activist Charles Fisher, “There’s gonna be a long hot summer. When poverty sinks into the hood, the hood responds.” If the youth can’t find work, “they are going to get money some kind of way.”

The cutting of summer youth jobs from 42,000 to 35,000 leaves a citywide deficit that creates a problem. “Broke people will rob,” warned retired detective Marquez Claxton. There is a need for quality recreation facilities and the full funding of groups like East New York’s Man Up Inc., and Life Camp, and the Furtado brothers in Queens.

At 9 a.m. on Sunday, State Senate Democratic leader Malcolm A. Smith called an emergency “Stop the Violence” summit at the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building.

The recent rash of youth shootings in Queens and Harlem prompted the high-profile official meeting, which had federal, state and local elected officials like Governor David Paterson and Congressman Charles Rangel joining community activists and top police brass.

Councilwoman Inez Dickens told the AmNews, “We have basic services being cut, schools are closed in the evenings, NYCHA has just announced that they are closing most of the community centers for the youth and the seniors. The three levels of government need to kick in the money so that the City Council can fund additional programs in all of our communities.”

The lifelong Harlemite predicted, “It’s going to be a very rough summer unless the three levels of government step up and the private sector gets involved. This is a recession. But the Black community never knew there wasn’t a recession. Young people need jobs and mentoring programs.”

During the past three months, neighborhoods from Harlem to Queens to Brooklyn have witnessed dozens of fatal and near-fatal teenage shootings.

“We as public officials, clergy, and community leaders must take a more aggressive approach to coming up with solutions to stop the growing gun violence on our city streets,” said Smith.

At the conclusion of the roundtable discussion, Smith announced the creation of “Operation SNUG,” the word “guns” spelled backwards.

This acronym basically breaks down to: S-treet intervention and stopping the violence; N-ational, state, local funding; U-se of celebrities and centers; G-angs, guns, and gainful employment.

Smith proposed four meetings to address each area.

Paterson said, “Gun violence is one of the most serious issues facing our city and state. Innocent lives – too often children – are ended because of trivial disputes and carelessness. I applaud Sen. Smith for bringing together some of the leaders in the fight to get guns off the streets and out of the hands of criminals.”

Brooklyn State Senator Eric Adams noted that the 44 shootings within the past three months occurring in the Brooklyn South division of the police department call for “legislators to promulgate an action plan to combat the scourge of gun violence.”

Adams told the AmNews, “We have to be careful of people not misinterpreting what needs to be done, dealing with over-aggressive police has nothing to do with dealing with crime in our communities. We’re still saying stop-and-frisk procedures are wrong.”

The State senator added, “The mayor has clearly balanced the budget on the backs of the services for young people. We have to get back into the business of providing services for our young people. We’ve closed just about all the community centers in public housing, cut the after-school programs, and we don’t have adequate summer jobs. The only thing going up is the stop-and frisk-reports.

“We fought to stop the cuts to education to keep after-school and other programs open. Also, we want to have an emergency funding source to have alternative initiatives for young people. I don’t think we are sitting on a powder keg, but it must be about ensuring funding sources for the summer, the winter and the year round.”

Harlem State Sen. Bill Perkins said, “We have to focus on finding, arresting, prosecuting and convicting those responsible for bringing and distributing these guns in our communities. We need more police protection without harassment. We need more training, education and employment opportunities. We have to provide parenting, social and anger management skills.”

Charles Fisher, chairman of the Harlem-based Hip-Hop Summit Youth Council, Inc., told the AmNews, with the recession hitting home, “It’s going to be tough on us all for a while, especially our youth and young adults. In anticipation of the problems created in part by a slumping economy, we have been working with Senate Democratic leader Malcolm Smith and Senator Eric Adams through the creation of a Task Force on Gang Violence Prevention for the last year to implement several initiatives to address the drugs, guns and gang violence plaguing our communities.”

Fisher said his organization has partnered with community groups, parents, business leaders, celebrities, and entertainment corporations “to implement these programs that address not only the immediate dangers of violence, but also the root causes.”

The Harlem summit comes in the wake of a similar gathering in the Redfern Houses community center in Far Rockaway several weeks ago. In response to the shooting deaths of two teens, City Councilman James Sanders met with Smith, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Queens D.A. Richard Brown, and community leaders.

Sanders said that funding to some of the grassroots non-profit group “has been frozen for close to two years. I told the bean-counters in the Office of Management and Budget that they should release the monies for the anti-gang violence initiatives.

“And I told them this isn’t theoretical – this is real. I said if we don’t do something about this issue there will be bodies on the ground and the blood will be on their hands. I argue that the shootings in Far Rockaway might have been prevented. This is about targeting an issue and addressing it. They have no idea of the impact their action has on the street. We are on the ground trying to keep the youth alive and focused on opportunities and possibilities and we’re not getting tools.”

At the Redfern Houses, Sanders said, they were trying to create a tenants association and a patrol. “We are pleading with the city to give us the tools – the walkie-talkies and the cameras. If we’re going to put our lives on the line, surely the city can do its part and give us the tools so we do this in a safe fashion.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg did not respond to an AmNews request for a comment.

An irritated Erica Ford told the AmNews, “Last year, elected officials put out this anti-gang initiative of $4 or $5 million and gave it out to 52 groups in the city to organize around gang violence and violence in the community. The organizations began to do their work based on a signed contract with the city. Then this whole thing with Speaker Christine Quinn happened with the bogus groups and the slush money. They froze the money. But we had already put up the money and we did the work.

“So the same thing they are saying now they said last year. Groups like Life Camp Inc., in Jamaica, Queens, we spent $25,000 of our own money, and now they are not even saying when we will get the money. A lot of people are out-of-pocket waiting for this funding that was promised.”

Ford slammed the recent meetings as being a political “smoke screen.”

“Man Up and a whole bunch of organizations in each council-manic district are all working with the youth; they all have programs, but these elected officials aren’t interested in real solutions. This is a business for them.” Relentless, Ford continued, “We have a program that works, but we don’t have any money. They don’t need to have meetings and show and tell and press conferences. They need to shut their mouths, go to these organizations and let them do what needs to be done. While these elected officials talk, our people are dying. Talk is cheap and lives are real. One hundred and eighty people have been murdered to date this year. Help bring the resources for the people. Stop talking about it – just do it and then after it’s done, and then they can say, ‘Look what I did.’”

Rev. Al Sharpton told the AmNews, “I think we are at a critical point and I’m going to challenge leaders, stars, elected officials, preachers and teachers to meet and work out solutions and legislation within 30 days. I’ve already talked to Governor Paterson who has proposed some legislation on guns. We need a more detailed and thorough meeting, but the emergency summit was a good start.”

Meetings must include the youth and the hip-hop ministry said Sharpton. “There is no reason why Life Camp and Man Up are not funded. You can’t stop programs that have worked.”

“Anti-gang initiatives, anti-violence, and after-school programs, recreational activities employment assistance for the formerly incarcerated is the work been done by a number of grassroots organizations,” said A.T. Mitchell, founder of the East New York non-for-profit Man Up Inc. “But they’ve had their funds frozen because of this whole Christine Quinn issue. Now the Department of Youth and Community Development is implementing new policies and reforms in order for groups to receive city funds. This is putting a great strain on grassroots organizations because they don’t have the money to function like the larger groups to sustain them until the money comes through, so they’ve had to close their doors.”

Mitchell added, “Now it seems like it is part of a plan to squash the little people and is a distraction from Quinn who created these false groups while she had millions of dollars just sitting there. It is just a travesty that groups in dire need have been targeted by the city agencies and made scapegoats of this larger scandal, and this is taking place city wide.”

Quinn did not respond to a request for a statement from the AmNews.

“The City recently implemented enhanced vetting procedures for City Council discretionary awards,” said Ryan Dodge, deputy chief of staff of the Department of Youth and Community Development. “The Department of Youth and Community Development is working with the Mayor’s Office of Contracts and the comptroller to ensure that vetted City Council awards are efficiently processed.”

“Kids need something to do – everybody realizes that,” said Deputy Inspector Dwayne Montgomery from Harlem’s 28th Precinct. He told the AmNews that recent events have emphasized the urgency of this reality. Law enforcers, elected officials and activists are all on the same page, and, “You’ll see a greater effort to get funding. Private corporations need to get involved, too.”

Theresa Freeman, district leader from Harlem, observed, “They’ve got millions for a new Yankee Stadium, for the Golden Gate exhibition in Central Park, or for the celebration of the Brooklyn Bridge; but then they turn around and take money from the after-school and the summer youth jobs program. The only solution is to provide jobs, to reinstate the after-school program and bring back arts in school and have a more balanced curriculum.”