Tonight, the Sacramento City Council will make a historic decision – whether or not to give the people the opportunity to vote on a measure that would change the lives of thousands of young people over the coming years.

The proposal before the council – to raise the sales tax by a quarter cent to fund youth programs and public safety – is controversial. Some say we should wait, do more research and postpone any action until a future ballot years from today.

We can't wait.

We can't wait because every month the Sacramento Police Department identifies 30 new gang members. At the current rate of gang growth, by the next scheduled election in 2010, Sacramento could have as many as 1,620 gang members, compared to the 900 police have identified as of today.

We can't wait because as more and more young people join gangs, our entire community suffers. Our local economy suffers as we have fewer taxpayers in our neighborhoods and more public dependency. Our city attracts fewer businesses. And we end up spending more precious dollars on locking up kids.

Over the last 25 years, our society has built what the Children's Defense Fund calls the "cradle to prison pipeline." We have invested a huge amount of public funding in building prisons and expanding law enforcement. At the same time we have reduced funding for youth job training and public education.

For example, 10 years ago, the Sacramento Employment Training Agency had funds to provide 1,500 to 2,000 youths with summer jobs and job training. Today, SETA has funds to train only 200 youths. The net result? We have the third highest incarceration rate in the world. The United States is first. China is second. California is third.

The City Council can do its part in stopping the cradle-to-prison pipeline. If this effort succeeds, we will create a roughly $9 million "youth investment" fund. Organizations that work with troubled youths will bring their effective programs to scale.

Schools, the police and community-based organizations will create new collaborative efforts to provide a never-before-seen level of intervention and support for youths and parents. With this kind of investment, the pipeline will gradually dry up. More young people will work in local businesses. More youths will graduate and go to college. Our streets will be safer.

We know what works; we just need to go to scale. Sacramento has an abundance of highly skilled providers of youth services. There are binders of research on the most effective youth programs. The City Council will be able to draw upon this research and expertise. The Office of Youth Development is well positioned to serve as the hub for this effort.

Our organization, Sacramento Area Congregations Together (ACT), does not accept government money and would not apply for this funding. We're involved in this issue because we're fed up with the human destruction we see in our neighborhoods.

We urge our City Council members to take a hard look at the consequences of supporting the status quo. We know the status quo – more kids joining gangs, more kids dropping out, more kids dying. We also ask them to set politics aside. This debate is not about the mayor's race. It's not about city/county politics. It's about kids. This tax is a sacrifice worth making.

In his "Letter From Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in response to his critics who urged him to go slow. King considered them to have a "tragic misconception of time." He wrote: "Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right."

The time is ripe to stand up for our children.

The Rev. Charles Warner is the board president of Sacramento Area Congregations Together (ACT) and the pastor of Christ Temple Apostolic Church. The Rev. Curtis LaMont Smith is a youth pastor at Genesis Church and an ACT leader in the Meadowview community.