Neighborhood Watch Meeting – June 18, 2009

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH MEETING
JUNE 18, 2009

Following is a summary of the last Neighborhood Watch meeting. The next meeting is scheduled to be held at the St. Joseph Township Building at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 16, 2009. Refreshments and child care will be available if you wish to bring your children. Please join us at this meeting. There are several important issues that will be discussed and we would like your input on these issues.

Summary

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP: The current Neighborhood Watch Committee consists of three members of the Crestlake Homeowners’ Association Board of Directors. It was concluded that the goal should be for the Neighborhood Watch Committee to include only one member of the CHOA Board who will serve as a liaison to the Board. No decision was made as to how many members there should be on the Committee or how the Committee membership should be chosen but that there should be an odd number of committee members to insure that decisions won’t be delayed due to tie votes.

BLOCK CAPTAIN RECRUITMENT: There are still only nine areas (Areas 4, 8, 9, 11, 12 15, 16, 18 and 21) that have Block Captains. Twelve of the Neighborhood Watch areas still do not have Block Captains. Joe Guetzloff (Area 11 Block Captain) may know someone who might volunteer to be a Block Captain. Joe indicated that he would contact the person and report back to the Committee.

MEETING ANNOUNCEMENTS: A concern was expressed that Block Captains and Area residents might not be coming to Neighborhood Watch meetings because they forget about the meetings. Techniques that might improve attendance at meetings included sending meeting minutes and summaries to Block Captains two weeks before a Neighborhood Watch meeting and then sending the agenda for upcoming meetings 1 week prior to the meeting. A Block Captain phone tree was developed to have Block Captains remind other Block Captains of the meeting a day or two before and the day of the meeting. This plan will be implemented to try to improve meeting attendance at future meetings.

MEETING FORMAT: Meetings will primarily be for organization and planning purposes until the Neighborhood Watch program is more solidified. Child care and refreshments will be provided at meetings. Some future meetings will be planned to focus on specific issues. The first issue-oriented program will be in September and will focus on Child Safety. Child ID kits will be sought to allow families to have pictures taken of their children and have their children fingerprinted.

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
AREA 4: Art Rapp is planning a Get Together for the residents in his Area for Thursday, July 2. 
AREA 8: Michele Guido and Jim Brock are planning a Get Together for Area 8. Tentative plans are that their Area 8 Get Together will be held sometime during the last week in July.

OPEN ISSUES
PLACEMENT OF NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH SIGNS:
 Neighborhood Watch signs will be placed 1) on Park Drive coming into Crestlake, 2) on E. Grand Avenue coming into Crestlake, 3) on N. Cedar Drive coming into Crestlake, 4) at E. Grand Avenue and Sportsman’s Club Road,  5) at E. Grand Avenue and Hawthorne Drive, 6) at Aspen Court and Locust Drive, and 7) at N. Cedar Drive and E. Grand Avenue.
RECENT PROBLEMS REPORTED IN CRESTLAKE: 1) Kids out after curfew in the vicinity of Areas 1 and 8, 2) Three different cars seen speeding through Crestlake, 3) Two incidents of sheds being broken into.

NEW BUSINESS: A brochure would be useful and will be developed before the next Neighborhood Watch meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:35 pm.

Next Meeting is Thursday, 7/16/2009 at 7 p.m. at the St. Joseph Township Building.