Thursday, October 2, 2008

Eastside Community Meeting Notes / September 2008

Hello Everyone,

More exciting news on the horizon!
Some of us went to the meeting at Lincoln High last night. Some of the highlights…..

Lt. Stringer told me we are going to be the next CBS area and expects that to happen in January, if I remember correctly. He also stressed how impressed with our energy and enthusiasm and assured us that he is there to support us.

Jeanie Peterson is looking at doing some mentoring for us and going on some patrols, too.

We also met a representative from the schools, Kate Frazier. She is the Liaison for the School, Family & Community Partnership Program. She’s the one who organized that major clean-up back in the spring. You may know her from that. Anyhow….it was exciting because they have that new school with no name…..kind of like the horse with no name but this isn’t a desert……dating myself..LOL….Well 3 names have been proposed….

1.Eastside Academy (in my opinion--- too generic and is not going to be something the students can be proud of)

2. Something in honor of the Delin family (my opinion---great idea and something to be proud of but not something the students can personally connect with unless they come from that family)

3. First Creek….(my opinion---that is the best of all and not because I am partial (although it would lend a lot of credibility to our efforts and give us more publicity) but because it creates a sense of community and collaboration with the tribe, gives students something to be proud of as they work with us to create a better community and is looking toward the future and the potential of each student to make a difference. Another reason for this name is to honor the students themselves. The school is going to be doing an environmental stewardship program which will get the students directly involved in the neighborhood…..helping to clean up, helping our elderly to take care of their yards, planting flowers and trees……and so forth….They are looking for sponsors for T-shirts to give to those students with the school name on it….

So, you can choose door #1, #2, or #3 tonight (Tuesday) at McIlvaigh at 6pm (1801 E. 56th St). ….go cast our vote…if you absolutely can’t make it tonight you can go To Gault on Thursday (1115 E. Division Ln.)

Edwina went home last night to write up a compelling rationale for the First Creek name….

Eventually I hope to see the students doing murals…..maybe a carwash at the park??? The possibilities are endless…

Next Citizens’ Patrol Class will be at Salishan Family Investment Center at 1724 E. 44th St. Participants learn how to safely combat crime in their neighborhoods. Training lasts three sessions -- Oct. 9, 16 and 23 -- from 7-9 p.m. To register, e-mail David Cantlin at choo_choo_dave@yahoo.com, call 253-272-6824 or visit safest.org.

Other business…..
Community Involvement Opportunity
We are going to be asked to measure our success and in by January we need a baseline from which to measure. We must know where we are now in order to see how far we will have come at that future date. So we need someone who likes compiling information and keeping records….perhaps in a spreadsheet…..We need to be able to document our successes because, as the Chief of Police said last night, people get motivated by results. We’ve also heard Officer Williams talk about the city being statistic-driven…..We are shutting down drug houses, arrests are being made, code violations are getting cleaned up, etc. Do any of you like doing this sort of thing?

We got free light bulbs again last night. I would like to contact the power company and ask if they can come to our next meeting and do that.

Joanne had the idea of announcing our meeting on Channel 12 since it is a public service announcement.

I am working on getting ready for the next meeting. Flyers will be ready by Friday since there is an event at the park where they can be distributed…..We could use some folks to get out over the weekend and hand these out…..The patrols can also do that while they are out. Anybody??? I will try my best to be available to anybody who needs a partner for foot patrol or handing out flyers. Just let me know.

Because of the new AIA (Alcohol Impact Area) we, as citizens, are going to be asked to keep an eye out at the neighborhood stores to monitor whether or not the stores are complying and not selling those certain types of alcohol. This starts October first.

A couple of our patrollers had an interesting experience yesterday. They told me about a certain suspected use for the black plastic bags that the liquor stores hand out so that is going to have to be addressed since it can be described as disgusting to civilized society.

More good news….Officer Hayes to make another two arrests at one of the closed-down meth house. Hoorah!

Guy came upon some more (pretty powerful---I mean POWERFUL) evidence against our meth ring that he turned over to Bert, as well.

Edwina, Please, pass this on to anyone else who needs to know this…Thank you!!

Lena

Submitted September 23, 2008 by Lena Thompson

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