October 2014 Meeting

Hello folks, some notes from our last meeting. Officer Durbin was in attendance. He reiterated the information from last meeting that the arrests are way down this year and the reports are also down. I will scan in the graphs that he created that show the numbers of reports, calls, and arrests each year since 2009. This year is looking pretty great for the park. Some incidents of note. The large slide was damaged on the playground. It is apparently a $3000 slide. There were two reports of indecent exposure. One was a man at the skate park that was looking for a "light" for his weed. When none of the kids offered one he started yelling and apparently pulled his pants down and exposed his rear and genitals. He was arrested. The other was a man that apparently followed a woman around the park and showed his genitals. She went to the dollar store and then came back to the park where he apparently followed her again. He was not found based on her description. We asked about incidents around town. Officer Durbin said the phone fraud schemes are still taking place. This is where someone calls a number and says they are FBI, county sheriff, some other authority figure--tells you there is a warrant for your arrest or you have outstanding tickets or something and tells you to buy the prepaid cards from 7-11 and give the numbers over the phone. Yes, people apparently fall for this--please don't! There has been some mail theft in Cheshire recently. Not too much else. Steve Zimmerman responded to me regarding the bulletin board idea. No wood will be allowed to construct anything. All message boards must be metal--which may make it harder to make it a community project. I am still planning to follow up with some Eagle Scout contacts that Lee Williams sent me--but welding isn't really as much of a community project as lumber and nails can be, so we'll see. Steve was ok with the idea though. They will also start moving sewer and electrical lines soon in the park on the east side. We discussed the Homeless Shelter. Prior to the meeting, I received just a few emails stating interest in organizing an event. The suggestion was made to have a mini triathlon using the Mems pool. Most present at the meeting thought that might be ambitious to organize. Due to lack of other response, my thought going forward is to offer our services to any existing fundraising activities that the shelter has planned. If more folks indicate an interest in helping, it may be possible to organize something, but I would rather not attempt something with 6-7 people (who all have work and family). We did discuss maybe organizing some goods drives--blankets, toiletries, etc based on the needs of the shelter. That might be a more do-able level of commitment. Please send me your thoughts on any of these matters. I have not heard back from Mike O'Connor regarding road signs. My guess is he is busy with the upcoming streets proposition. I might go a different route and ask a city council member to find an answer for me. (As a reminder I asked Mike to direct me to relevant laws about speed limit signs and children playing signs in neighborhoods like ours). We picked November 19 as the date of our next meeting. Michele agreed to host at her house since the October meeting was held at the park. We discussed getting the word out again for our meetings--perhaps phone trees or something. Any thoughts are appreciated. Have a great autumn.