Monday, May 21, 2007

White Rock Hills Public Safety Task Force develops mission statement and action plan

By Pegasus News wire

Ferguson Road Initiative

WHITE ROCK HILLS — The Ferguson Road Initiative's Public Safety Task Force met recently to develop a mission statement and brainstorm on how to strengthen neighborhood crime watch groups.

Susan Walker, FRI Board Member and Public Safety Task Force (PSTF) Community Chair, convened the meeting at 6:45 with introductions. Walker then reviewed the purpose of the meeting and laid out the tasks to accomplish:

• Develop a mission statement for the Public Safety Task Force (PSTF).
• Develop next steps, create an action plan and decide on next meeting date.
• Reviewed ground rules for meeting.

Susan Walker then introduced Sr. Corporal Ron Carpenter, Dallas Police Northeast Division Residential Crime Watch and Volunteer in Patrol (VIP) Coordinator. Sr. Crpl. Ron Carpenter provided handouts that showed crime stats for the entire NE sector from January 1, 2007 – April 29, 2007. He reminded the group about the upcoming VIP training on May 12, 2007 and the Kid’s Safety Fair on June 2, 2007.

Weed & Seed Coordinator Kerry Goodwin discussed FRI Weed & Seed status and role in the community.

Doug Woodham of the Crime Watch Executive Board explained what CWEB is and its purpose and provided hints on ways to get neighbors to participate in Crime Watch and how to keep the meetings interesting.

Susan Walker lead off a group activity by giving the group the beginning of the mission statement then the group came up with words they felt described an effective and unified task force. Kerry Goodwin and Carolyn Bullard then took those words and made a complete mission statement. This statement was presented to the group. The group then worked to come up with a statement the entire group could agree on.

The group also worked together on an email notification system. Using red, yellow and green traffic light codes for community leadership awareness of email contents. Red and yellow lights indicate varying degrees of crime concerns and green light will indicate events and general information. The Red Light email will be used to notify the task force of urgent matters in the area. The Yellow Light email will be used to notify the task force of things to be cautious of. The Green Light email will be used to notify the task force of any general information and/or upcoming events.

The meeting ended with the following action plan:

• To complete and submit to the Crime Prevention Specialist a mission statement.
• “Ferguson Road Initiative Public Safety Task Force’s mission is to reduce and prevent crime. We will do this by encouraging community awareness and promoting personal involvement and _________________________.”
• Continue to support the PSTF by attending future meetings.
• Next PSTF meeting scheduled for the end of July.

See more stories in:

• Crime
• Ferguson Road Initiative

Comments

Mike Orren Staff

It depends on what area you're describing. Here's the map of the area encompassed:

That's a large amalgam of neighborhoods of varying racial and economic makeup. Both statistically and anecdotally, I can tell you that the area around Ferguson and Highland and particularly the area around Buckner and Peavy (aka Two-points) are very high-crime. Robbery, drug dealing, prostitution (on Dilido) and violent crime are all very high.

Here's a map of just last week's Two-points crime:

I wrote a lot on our proto-blog about how the crime in the Two-points area near my house spurred some of the ideas behind this site:

http://blog.pegasusnews.com/2004/10/b...

http://blog.pegasusnews.com/2005/05/w...

1 year, 3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Michael Davis Verified

This is good stuff. This is the type of thing that Dwaine Caraway and I will be trying to put together once he's at Council this summer.

1 year, 3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )