Meetings:
Results of a Neighborhood
Watch Street Coordinators meeting. On your behalf, ten of us
have made some changes and decisions on how we would like to see
Neighborhood Watch function in the upcoming year. So far, everyone
seems to be very pleased with our Neighborhood Watch program. Thank you
for your support.
Here are the first changes we've made in the N/W Guidelines. There will be no difference in how you report crime to Marva. Valerie will continue to update our website but will not be receiving crime report emails any longer. Street Coordinators will be answering Non-Emergency and Non- Neighborhood Watch questions.
If you're not sure what to do, contact your Street Coordinator with questions. Check your directory for their contact information.
The Inception of Fairway Broadmoor Estates Neighborhood Watch 2011
Our Spring N/W Meeting was very productive. Thank you all for coming! We met new neighbors from every street in our community. With festive music, a variety of delicious foods, and raffle drawings prior to beginning the meeting, we all met one another, swapped stories and laughed together. After discussing the many topics of interest to everyone, we felt it was a success! We plan to have another similar meeting in the Fall, unless there is a need for us to get together sooner. We will let you know well in advance of the next date.
As indicated in a previous email, this meeting was to ask questions and come away with decisions as to how YOU
want our N/W to function. This will be a long email in order for me to recap the meeting. We hope those of you who couldn't come will agree with the outcome. However...if for any reason you don't agree...we need to hear from you.
TOPICS OF DISCUSSION
- 2/3 of our community is using our website. Thanks!! There will be times you may be asked to check the website for topics other than crime related information.
- The majority of people want our N/W group to be about CRIME in our community and to receive CRIME ALERTS & INFORMATIONAL EMAILS ONLY. Too many emails may cause disinterest.
- Half of the people do want to hear about various topics unrelated to crime. For those people, the topics will be specified in the "subject area" of the email. You can chose to read that email or not....or go to the website at a later time. Examples of this would be "Lost Pets" and "Kids and School Alerts"
- About 1/3 of the people would like to have social events for the entire community, independent of our N/W meetings. An example might be like a Fourth of July block party. You wouldn't be sent a separate email. You would be asked to go to our website to read about the details.
- It was unanimous that no one minds if their neighbors email them directly. Your email address may be used by your neighbors if they are sharing information or want to contact you for various reasons. An example would be if a neighbor has summer fruits or vegetables to share, they might personally send you an email. [This is not for professional use]. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS DECISION, WE MUST HEAR FROM YOU RIGHT AWAY.
- Neighborhood Newsletter. This was brought up by a neighbor who is willing to put together a newsletter with miscellaneous information about what's going on around our community. It was decided that it's a great idea....but should be put on our website and not sent out independently via email. It was also decided that it should not contain any type of advertising because this could be construed as a conflict of interest. Neighborhood Watch would not be responsible for the content of a Newsletter.
- Summer time is upon us. PLEASE SLOW DOWN. Although Ben Lomond has two stop signs, traffic drives too fast down that street, as well as all our other streets. Neighbors will be taking walks, walking their pets and children are at play. Please try to keep your speed under 20mph when you're driving through the neighborhoods.
- Street Lights. See reconnaissance page.
- If you are a victim of crime, this is how our network is set up. The Victim will contact Marva Scott and the information will be verified prior to an Alert going out. The victim's name and street will be used in the Alert. An Alert will be sent to Carissa and 82 households in our neighborhoods. Carissa will post it on our website for future reference and we hope you will all speak to your surrounding neighbors. If you have any suggestions on how we can improve our system, please let us know. Everyone agreed the networking system is working very well thus far.
- Recycle Bins are still a problem. It was suggested to wait till Friday morning to put out the cans to avoid the riff-raff coming in at night. Eventually they'll get the hint. Always shred any personal documents before putting them in your recycle bins.
- The more reports and the more contacts we make with the sheriff's office, the more they will target our community and pay attention to us.
- Welcome Tom F. on Stafford who has volunteered to be our street coordinator. We now have street coordinators for each street.
- N/W Directories will be reprinted in the next couple of months. We still have a few more names we'd like to add. You will all be given an updated directory when they're ready.
- Safety Tips - Summer is the Time for Crime Be vigilant and watch things going on around you and on your streets. Don't answer your door without knowing who is on the other side of it. People case the neighborhoods before coming back to burglarize a home.
In doing the correspondence for N/W Marva has some statistics you may find interesting. She said we have a terrific and diverse group, each with different ideas and concerns. Out of 82 households currently, there are 30 percent of you who have children. 50 percent of our group is over fifty years old and about 20 percent are over seventy. Half want to socialize and half want to have minimal interaction with the group. 10 percent want to be involved in the decision making process. 15 percent of the group have contacted us for various reasons. All this means is that we are a normal community with busy schedules, families to take care of and jobs to go to. Some people are social people and some people prefer to stay to themselves.... and it's all good!! We can't stress enough though, how important it is to hear from everyone [occasionally] with new ideas, suggestions and opinions over the next six months. On the other hand...if we don't hear anything, we'll assume all is going well and there's no need for change.
Sheriff's Advice
1. If we don't report crime we may miss out on resources because they determine where to go based on where the crime is occurring. Several of us commented on both the time it takes to report and situations where they hadn't responded. They say they really like to see surveillance video, but I (and there was another example) where video was available soon after the crime of the thieves using a stolen ATM card nearby at a gas station, but they said they had no resources to check it out. They could not answer why this happened, however they said in a situation like that call the sheriff's dept and demand to speak to a Sergeant. They said the "squeaky wheel, gets the grease". This situation happened in our neighborhood in November.
2. Increases in solicitations door to door precedes an increase in burglaries.
a) Be a good witness, b) call law enforcement (non-emergency) if they seem suspicious, c) they could be stealing mail and most importantly d) if not looked at or approached they feel like they own the neighborhood and feel comfortable coming back.
3. Some good news. Now the Sheriff's Dept works with the CHP. They now have radios that communicate with each another. So when there is a crime, the CHP can be nearby to help them or catch fleeing vehicles.
Our Sheriff Deputy is EHOBBS@SACSHERIFF.COM. He said you can send him email.
