January 2009 Meeting Minutes

Meeting started at approximately 6:35pm

Neighborhood Reports (crime and other activity from the past month)
Home break-in at corner of 59th & Park, on 1/4/2009, in the afternoon
Vehicle break-ins in alley between 58th & 59th, West of G Street, in evening approximately 1 week ago

Speed Watch Report
Worst areas are Park Avenue and S 64th Street.
Will continue speed watch for a few more weeks.

Report from CLO? (Don Williams, CLO of TPD)
Yes, our CLO will continue to attend our meetings, City and TPD feel it is really important to maintain involvement with neighborhood watch groups.

Officer Williams presented crime statistics for December 2008 (3,541 formally reported crimes)
comparisons were also given for Sector 4 vs. all other sectors, Sector 4 was higher than any other sector.
Expecting our sector (4-3) to become part of Community Based Services (CBS) area in April. What does this mean to us?
Better access to Tacoma Police Dept., Tacoma Public Utilities, Tacoma CARES, Code Enforcement (Building Inspector, Building & Land Use), Crime Prevention through Environment Design (CPTED).
CBS can also help with community clean-up and neighborhood “Call to Haul.”

Discussed manner of home break-ins: most common method - back doors are kicked-in.

Addressed questions regarding increased crime and break-ins, mainly feeding drug habits.

What can we do? Keep on eye on neighborhood, monitor problem homes & suspected drug homes, continue to report activities to 911 and use “House Watch” forms to track vehicle descriptions, license plate numbers and suspect descriptions, submit “House Watch” forms to neighborhood group, block captains, Safe Streets, and so on.

Report from David Cantlin, Safe Streets Coordinator Neighborhood Patrols
This is the best way to actively reduce crime throughout our neighborhood.
We become an extension of the Police Department’s eyes & ears in our neighborhood.
This is an effective tool for maintaining a presence throughout our neighborhood.
We will become better at documenting and communicating with TPD what is happening here.
Our neighborhood will be better recognized by TPD and be able to work with us more effectively.

Neighborhood Patrol Academy will be held 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Thursday each month.
Classes are free and are held at TPD Headquarters.
Differences for 2009: Each academy student will have Washington State Patrol background check (no charge).
Patrol involvement? Patrol members average 3-6 hours per month

We now have a Neighborhood Patrol Leader for Park Avenue Neighborhood, patrols will begin within next month.

Kathleen Merryman of The News Tribune is very interested in what our neighborhood has done and what we are currently doing. She would like to meet with us to discuss our group and our activities.

About Bounty Food Bank (at Bethany United Methodist Church):
Now serving more members of the community.
Need donations of paper goods, cleaning supplies and toiletries. These are items they are not able to buy with food stamps.

Several members donated to Bounty Food Bank and Bethany U.M.C.’s heating fund.

Meeting ended at 8:10pm