VALDOSTA — City leaders are taking a proactive approach to combating violence in the community.

At Thursday night’s Valdosta City Council meeting, the council approved the organization of a Community Task Force on Violence.

Tonight at 7 p.m. Serenity Christian Church on 1619 Lee St. will hold a forum with area youth discussing the issues they are facing.

The time to take a proactive approach, many feel, is now.

Mayor John Fretti said many of the resources are already in place for outreach, but they need to be highlighted more.

D.A.R.E., neighborhood watch programs, school resource officers at the schools, after-school programs, the Boys and Girls Club and the Lowndes Drug Action Council are just some of the programs that offer services, he said.

“All those things are intended to be outreach and education and intervention,” Fretti said. “But some of these youths, they are not going to go, they are not going to listen. These agencies are a punchline to some of these kids that have been raised by thugs.”

Getting character and personal respect messages out into the community could be a direction to go in, he said.

“From bill boards to downtown banners to Twitter and Facebook,” he said. “Whatever gets it to them, even if it’s little posters on the side of the walls of where they hang out.”

They need to see that they matter and others care about their future, Fretti said.

The reason behind the task force is that there is only so much the city government can do, City Manager Larry Hanson said.

“It’s got to begin with families and parents and schools and church,” Hanson said. “It’s not any single entity that can perform that service.”

Sixty percent of the city’s $30 million general fund budget is committed to support the Valdosta Police Department. At the first of the year stimulus, funds will provide the police department with seven additional police officers.

To succeed in apprehending those who do commit violent crime, law enforcement needs the help of the community, Hanson said.

“There is rarely a violent crime that is committed that people don’t know or have some knowledge of in advance or certainly know as it is occurring,” Hanson said. “But that message is not being communicated and the public has to be part of the solution.