Hopefully we will see the Meeting minutes from the January 25th meeting posted before our February 29th meeting.  For those of you who were not able to make it to that meeting, let me touch on the main focus of the meeting.  After the usual RPD review of the crime stats for our area, Adam McFadden introduced Tony Clark who owns 330-350 Thurston Road,  between the Ravenwood and Milton.  Mr. Clark was the victim of a shooting at Thurston and Milton and later a stabbing downtown back in December.  The perpetrators are suspected drug dealers who have have been using that Thurston area as an open air drug market.  Mr. Clark drew their wrath when he repeatedly called police on them and repeatedly told them to not trespass on his property and to not loiter in front of his building.  Residents in the area and merchants who know what has been going on had voiced heightened concern about safety on the street and the need to have the police take a more proactive roll in clearing the streets of this drug activity.

At prior meetings such as PCIC and SWCC we had heard suggestions that regular people did not need to have a heightened concern about our safety on Thurston.  Crime is down. These were targeted attacks.  The individual had perhaps been too confrontational in his telling them to not trespass or loiter.  He should just have called 911.  At the Jan 25th meeting, as Mr. Clark told his story to the group, we did not see a confrontational man, we saw a true victim.  He had moved back into the City to try to make a positive difference.  He was the "regular people", trying to make a go of it in our neighborhood like we keep hoping people will do.    Besides shooting at him and stabbing him they have also been breaking windows and kicking in doors of empty apartments to do some of their drug-dealing or whatever.

The discussion that followed touched on these facts:

• There are no laws against loitering in Rochester.
• Trespassing laws require the property owner to call the police when someone is trespassing and sign the complaint against the particular individual.
• Using the blue light cameras to catch drug dealers is difficult because of all the precautions the dealers take.
• The police can't just walk up to someone and check them out for drugs unless they have probable cause.
• They do have a lot more leverage over people who are on probation, but identifying them is the problem.  They do not have facial recognition software they can use with their blue light cameras.

Adam asked if there would be support from people this time if he reintroduce legislation in City Council for an anti-loitering ordinance.   The reaction was mixed and left him hanging.  Mr. Clark and his friends kept trying to get some a commitment for the police to do something to get rid of the troublemakers.  The response kept coming back to "Call 911".   Complaints that the police drive right by obvious violations such as cars parked on the sidewalk also got the "Call 911" response.  It was clear that the RPD functions in a complaint driven mode and that for a more proactive mode of operation to develop would call for a new directive from above.

On January 28th I saw Chief Sheppard at meeting and reviewed the issues from the January 25 meeting.  I asked him get involved in the discussion since any shift to a more proactive mode requires his direction.  He said he would be happy to attend our next meeting if his schedule permitted.  I passed that information to Adam and he was going to talk to the Chief.  Hopefully we will see Chief Sheppard Wednesday, February 29th.

The push for more active code enforcement by the 19th Ward Housing Committee to improved the appearance of the neighborhood, and the effort by the new Our Neighborhood Merchants group on Location19 to improve the patronage of local businesses by our residents are two more initiatives that reinforce and depend on improvement of policing of our streets.

Hope to see you Wednesday.