Pueblog USa
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Quarterly OHNO Meeting
Brief-back on what transpired.
Had a GREAT meeting last night.
About 20 people showed up to hear reports on what was going on around us, listen to Detective Pat Heine (Pueblo Police Department Crime Prevention Officer) about the reasons for having a Neighborhood Watch Program and discuss some really great ideas on how to improve our ability to influence what is going on in the neighborhood.
The information reported is as follows:
Mineral Palace Park and CDOT’s Plans to Widen I25
The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is still in the works. Funding for it has been approved for 2007.
In my capacity as part of the Citizen’s Advisory Counicl (CAC) on the Pueblo Area Council of Governemnts’ Transportation Committee, I’ve asked Bill Moore, in the Urban Transport. Planning office, to keep us apprised of developments in the negotiations between the city and CDOT over the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) which will ‘codify’, i.e., lock in concrete, who does what to whom, when, where, why, how and for what price. The reports should come ever four months, for the time being. The points of interest to not only OHNO, but every other neighborhood along the corridor, will be whether the City Fathers’ and CDOT’s agreements are in accordance with what each neighborhood understood, in 2003, was going to happen in their area of interest.
Community Gardening
The efforts you read about in the Pueblo Chieftain last Sunday include OHNO.
Our particular interest, for the time being, is to establish a community garden on the south side of Mineral Palace Park; in the vicinity of the senior centers there.
Neighborhood Watch
From my perspective, i.e., [Not for the squemish] a lowly grunt, keeping a cautious eye on what is going on around you is a great way to (1) protect yourself and (2) protect your neighbors who could also protect you.
Just to punctuate the importance of this—with an exclamation point—witness today’s article in the Pueblo Chieftain
.
Seriously people, anytime I hear gunfire I (1) make sure the rounds are not impacting near me, (2) grab means of communications to call for support, e.g., the police or heavy artillary, whichever I think will respond quicker and (3) try to appraise the situation in order to gather information for reporting and determine what I should do next.
As a free and law-abiding community, we cannot afford to let this sort of thing happen. And everytime we do nothing about it, it only encourages those who did it to do it again. And next time it will more likely be worse.
Nuff said on THAT.
Pat’s delivery was great. The questions from the gathered members were intelligent and her answers demonstrated a degree of wisdom. She left immediately after her presentation. And I can’t blame her. She puts in long hours and standing around drinking coffee and eating cookies, while talking business, several nights a month, after giving classes all day, is not my idea of a way to unwind.
Personally, I intend to look further into this activity.
Afterwards
The discussions amongst us afterwards did not revolve so much around Neighborhood Watch as one might expect. Instead, the topic drifted into the realm of what can we do to prevent further deterioration of the quality of life in the neighborhood.
One of the ideas that came to the fore involved OHNO taking a more proactive approach to—as Hamlet would put it—the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’. There will be more discussion of that this coming Tuesday, 14 March 2006, at the Nawrocki place. Brain-drizzle begins a 7 pm.
Interestingly enough, Heather Norton has been working along a similar vein regarding such things as community activism. She’s working on a project called ‘Neighboring’. She brought that to our attention. I think it dovetails well with not only the item that will be reviewed next Tuesday, but also with the very fiber of Neighborhood Watch.
Next entry: A Rant on Education and Pueblo Previous entry: Conduit III