Jan 7th, 2009

Hello Neighbors!

We had our first meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 7th at the Cypress School Cafeteria. Over 50 neighbors attended and our distinguished guest speakers included:

Peter Hansen, Chief of Police
Mike Leonard, Crime Prevention Officer-RPD
Roger Moore, RPD Officer
Jim Hamilton, Director of Development Services-City of Redding
Cindy Bishop, Cypress School Principal
Maureen Lewis, Traffic Advisory Committee-Redding School District and
Elin Klaseen, Chairperson of the Parkview Neighborhood Association (PNA).

Several of our speakers mentioned how encouraged they are to see neighbors who care about their neighborhood and are willing to work with the city and police officers to improve our community. We have a great neighborhood, and some talented people with good ideas.

We discussed the importance of getting to know our neighbors and working together in areas of mutual interest. Our initial goal is starting Neighborhood Crime Watch Groups, as we are observing increases in crime around the city and decreases in social services (i.e. police officers). In this time of economic change, getting to know our neighbors and communicating more with the RPD and City can only serve us in a positive way.

Please talk to your neighbors, exchange phone numbers and crime histories, and, if possible, identify a block captain for your street. Have a meeting with Mike Leonard, RPD - 225-4209 and he will provide crime statistics for your street and information on how you can better protect your home. It is so easy to do, I spent very little time and, although I'd like to catch everyone, I hope to catch up with the ones I missed in the next few weeks. You can have a meeting with just 4 or 5 individuals. Also, if you observe unusual individuals checking car doors, or driving slowly with lights off at night, please call RPD Dispatch to report them at 225-4564. We need to be the RPD's "eyes and ears" because only we know who belongs on our street and what is unusual on our block.

Also at our Jan 7th meeting, we collected ideas from everyone for key action items which we will list and prioritize before the next meeting (March or April). We are excited to receive our neighbors' input and develop mutual goals to work toward.

Elin Klaseen, Parkview Neighborhood Association (PNA), invited everyone to attend their next meeting on January 21st, 7 pm, at Juniper School. Their speakers will be Supervisor Mark Cibula, and Supervisor David Kehoe. It is a great opportunity to work together with the PNA to learn more about our local government and how we might better work with it to serve our community interests.

Thank you for all those who attended the first meeting and we look forward to see more support and enthusiasm as we decide our goals and next steps. We hope to contact those interested in planning meetings for a small group meeting in February. Our next Garden Tract Society meeting will take place in March or April and the same flyers will be distributed approximately 2 weeks prior.

See you next time...
Monique