West Garland Neighborhood Association

Minutes of January 23^rd 2014 Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 7:00 in the usual meeting site of the First Christian Church by President Ricardo Rocha.  He led us in a Pledge of Allegiance and then called role of officers attending. Vice-President Ellen Fong, Secretary Lesley Henry, Treasurer Robert Vera, and Community Liaison Doris Lafayette were absent due to the local flu epidemic and bad weather.

Treasurer Robert Vera being absent Ken Agee reported the current balance of $550.97.

The minutes of the last meeting were read by Ken Agee, approved and seconded by WGNA members who attended this previous meeting.

President Ricardo Rocha introduced our guest speaker Neighborhood Patrol Officer Tim Franey who had just come from the memorial service of the 7-11 store clerk who had been gunned-down by a neighborhood teenager in a senseless act of violence. Officer Franey expanded on the topic that President Rocha had introduced – that Garland’s Police department has a program called “Neighborhood Crime Watch” which is a structured program that has an assigned “Neighborhood Coordinator” and “Block Captains”. High-level meetings are held at GPD headquarters (1891 Forest Lane) quarterly. Officer Franey also talked about recent crimes like the ones at our local RaceTrak (4214 Forest Ln) where thieves took purses from unlocked cars while the victims “only went in for a second”.

Longtime neighbor Henry Peerman pointed out that in the past, the local School’s PTA organization had good success at mustering neighborhood-watch teams, and there was an immediate consensus that the WGNA should seek collaboration.

Old Business:  Streets are still being blocked by too many vehicles (big trucks parked in the street too long, cars parked too close to an intersection, etc). Officer Franey had an impressive knowledge of details, and explained why some issues could not be corrected, and took down information about others. He also pointed out that correction of all violations of Garland’s Code of Ordinance meant taking away from their time dealing with bigger issues – in other words, the only have so much time to deal with “crime”, so they have to set priorities. Karen Bennett, who has quite a bit of experience with Neighborhood Crime Watch organization, suggests that we make blank handouts to pass out in the neighborhood that let a particular family to record the names of the their neighbors. Henry Peerman pointed out that in the past the PTA / PTO had helped our neighborhood get involved with crime-prevention.

New Business:  We need to determine the details of this spring’s Texas Trash-Off event that will again be sponsored by the Keep Garland Beautiful organization, of which Fran Brown is a member. It was suggested by Henry Peerman that we try to get someone from the Streets Dept, possibly from their Engineering Dept, to speak to the group.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:04 PM.

Respectfully prepared by

Ken Agee (acting for Lesley Henry, Secretary)