OCEANSIDE - Two proposals that share a similar goal of reducing gang violence, but urge different approaches, appear likely to butt heads before the City Council on Wednesday.

One proposal, by Councilman Rocky Chavez, calls for the council to establish an advisory panel on community safety that would have the power to seek federal funding and use the resources of city staff. That idea was developed by a group of 40 or so community members, who have been working for months to develop strategies for curbing gang violence.

The other proposal, by Councilwoman Esther Sanchez, asks the council to support a "community-based model for addressing at-risk youth development" instead.

Sanchez said Monday that her plan leaves control over anti-gang efforts where it belongs -- with neighborhood leaders who are already developing such programs. Chavez's proposal would only duplicate those efforts, she said.

"It's an insult to those who have been working on this for free in the community," Sanchez said, of the advisory panel idea. "To take away the leadership that has blossomed would be demoralizing."

The council will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 300 North Coast Highway, to talk about the proposals.

Sanchez on Monday pointed to the Eastside, Libby Lake and Crown Heights neighborhood associations, and the work of the Samoan Cultural Committee in the city's back gate area, as examples of existing programs that are working on gang prevention.

In addition, she said, city staff members helped open a drop-in program at Melba Bishop Park and a police store front at the San Luis Rey Resource Center.

Those efforts suggest an advisory panel is unnecessary, she said.

Chavez said Monday he doesn't see the rub. He's proposing a formal coalition of between nine and 13 members. Appointments would come from the council, he said, with commissioners representing the city's community groups.

"This should be all encompassing, not political," he said.

"If Esther has anybody she'd like to see in this, put them in," he added. "It's not restrictive. But the end result is they have to do something."

Because it would be a city advisory group - called the Community Safety Coalition - doors to federal grant funding and support from city staff would be opened, Chavez said.

One thing he would like to see is a program to develop jobs for young people and a mentoring program to keep kids out of trouble, he said.

"It's a systemic approach," Chavez said Monday of the coalition. "We've tried this before and it hasn't happened because personalities got in the way. It's not about us. It's about young kids who probably don't even know we're meeting."

Oceanside, a diverse city of 175,000, has a history of gang violence and is home to 12 street gangs, made up of roughly 621 documented gang members, police said earlier this year. Another 450 people in the city are gang associates, meaning they are linked to those gangs.

The focus on gang prevention has sharpened since December, when Oceanside police Officer Dan Bessant was killed in what police say was a gang-related shooting.

The community members who are behind Chavez's proposal began meeting shortly after Bessant's death. The group grew out of two community roundtable discussions hosted by the North County Times.

John Herrera, a Vista resident and a leader in the Latino community who attended the meetings, said Monday that prevention -- in addition to intervention and suppression - is very important to successfully combating the gang problem.

"Traditionally, the resources and effort have been on arresting and putting the guys away, which is necessary," Herrera said. "But there also has to be a focus on intervention and prevention. You have to have a redirection of these young kids, especially those that come from neighborhoods with intergenerational histories of gang involvement."

Oceanside Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer David Nydegger characterized the idea as "still in its infancy," but said he hopes the business community will be able to step up.

"One of the serious issues we're concerned about is the hard-core gang-bangers start in elementary school," Nydegger said. "So we're really investigating the possibility of a mentoring program."

Such a program would involve volunteers from the business community who would work with young kids, much like a Big Brother/Big Sister program, he said.

"You'd develop the relationships and give them the basic skills so that as they grow older they can get employed and stay employed," Nydegger said.

Sanchez, however, said that bringing in business people who are not based in the neighborhoods is a bad idea.

"My philosophy is that whatever you do has to be community-based," she said. "It doesn't make sense to have someone from some other area, I don't care who it is, come in and say I know what your problems are and how to fix them."

She said empowering someone from outside the neighborhood has a negative effect on the people there.

"They don't become role models for the kids," she said.

Preston Griggs, who attended the community meetings, said mentoring and employment programs are much needed. Griggs led two student discussion groups for the group behind Chavez's proposal and is president of the Black Student Union at MiraCosta College.

"Most of the gang members who do illegal things are doing them because they have no means of support," Griggs said. "The wages are low compared to the cost of living."

He suggested more vocational programs that would give options to young men who don't want to go to college.

"If that happened, we'd see a decline in crime," he said. "We have the older generation of gang members that want to stop doing what they're doing but can't because they have no other option. And in turn, the older people would influence the younger people."

- Contact Staff Writer Marga Kellogg at (760) 901-4067 or mkellogg@nctimes.com.