Cypress : Students Gang Up on Council for Funding

Although it may have looked as if the Cypress City Council meeting earlier this week was taken over by a youth street gang, the appearance was somewhat deceiving.

With one teen-ager carrying a knife and another five or six snapping their fingers, a group of teen-agers made their way to the front of the council’s chamber Monday night.

They wanted money.

And they got it.

The teen-agers were students from John F. Kennedy High School in La Palma. In their pitch for money for a new theater, the students put on some music and performed a version of the “Officer Krupke” scene from the production “West Side Story,” which features battling street gangs.

“We knew they were going to to make a presentation, but we didn’t know they were going to do that,” Cypress City Manager Darrell Essex said.

The school is trying to raise about $30,000 to convert a room into a 250-seat theater, Essex said. Impressed with the presentation Monday and because many Cypress teens attend Kennedy High, the council allocated $2,500 toward the new theater, which needs lighting, sound and video systems, among other things, Essex said.

“It was really funny to see the look on people’s faces when they walked into the middle of that,” Essex said. “It was really well done.”