Neighborhood Officers

[CarthagePrez]

It was explained to us that the phone numbers are unchanged.  Now a dispatcher can take the non-emergency call and relay it to the neighborhood cop without having to wait until that officer is on duty again.  With a cop on each shift you should actually have better chances of talking to someone with a degree of accountability to the neighborhood.

Our neighborhood officer was changing so frequently that in at least one case he was assigned and then re-assigned before we ever had our next meeting.  If the new system results in more stability in who carries the accountabilty then I'm all for it.

As far as how it's changed things here, I think it's too early to say.

[Dawn Longworth]

Rob, Thanks for the information.  I was just wondering how the communication with the officers is.  Has it gotten better, the same, worse.  I spoke out about this change at many forums, including the neighborhood summit.  I attend the Dist 4 police meeting monthly for a few years now.  I just wondered how the change has affected Carthage.  I feel like we have lost a neighborhood officer who really knew us and what our concerns are.  All I have been doing since the change is trying to build new relationships with officers and informing them what our issues are.  And before there were 2 phone numbers you could call to get ahold of your neighborhood officer, now I'm lucky if I can get ahold of anyone who is supposed to be a Hartwell neighborhood officer.  Just wanted to see if you were experiencing the same problems..

[CarthagePrez]

Dawn, sorry about the delay in my response - I didn't notice a new topic!  Gotta get used to the message board thing.

The way it's been explained to us, I think it may actually work out better.  Instead of one person in charge of tracking all the things we tell them about, we now have three who are responsible for the neighborhood(s).  Each of three shifts has one person on a regular beat who is held responsible for CPOP actions.  I think this will keep the new version of the neighborhood cop more involved with the criminal side of things, while still maintaining regular contact with the community council.

This is one of those things that sounded bad until you got the details.  I think once we see it in action we'll get a better view of how this is going to work out.

The "lumped together" issue is somewhat frustrating, but we have a lot in common, too.  We try to participate in the same holiday event and have similar issues with the Galbraith Rd exit closures.  I think if we formed an alliance we could accomplish more - there's pwoer in numbers and if we issue joint resolutions and support each other on the common problems we may get more attention/action.  I'd like to start by proprosing we visit each other's regular meetings as we can.  We meet at 19 E. 72nd St. at 7:30 on the third Monday of most months, January and holidays providing the only exceptions.  Feel free to come and introduce yourself to our members.

[Dawn Longworth]

I was wondering how Carthage is doing with the Chiefs new "Neighborhood officer" plan.  I heard today that they are combining Hartwell & Carthage today.  Nothing personal but, Hartwell & Carthage have been lumped together for years on so many things.  I was quite happy with last year we each got our own neighborhood officers to better help our communities individual issues.  I haven't had any feed back from the new officers or their superiors, just wondering if you are happy with the changes.