WEST GARLAND NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION SUMMARY 4/29/11 K.Agee

This quarterly meeting was held at the Hollabaugh Rec Center on April 28, 2011.   Barbara Chick presided over the meeting, which was called to order at 7:04pm.

Bobbie Woods has the complete minutes of the meeting, but here’s a quick summary:

Lori Dodson announced her candidacy to the newcomers and Barbara reminded us what a good representative Lori has already been (having grown up in Garland, and raising her family in the same neighborhood).  Barbara also gave praise to Richardo Roca  but ended up giving her whole-hearted endorsement for District 6 City Council Represntative to Lori Dodson. Barbara pointed out that there was early voting being held from 5/2 thru 5/10 down at City Hall.  Voting hours are 8am-5pm most days, but on May 9 & 10 they're open from 7am until 7pm.  Lori left and Barbara

introduced Ofc. Franney & Mallison, and their boss Lt. Ben St. Clair.

Barbara pointed out that Lt. St. Clair reports directly to the Chief of Police, showing how seriously the GPD takes the Neighbhood Patrol concept.

Lt. St. Clair promoted an interactive website at:  http://www.crimereports.com/.  This leads to a map that lets you control the date-range, types of crimes, and neighorhood, to see recent (usually about 7 days behind real-time) incidents.  I just tried it, and it works - if you know to zoom in from the default level on the map, and then put checkmarks beside a few categories of crimes.

As always, the NPO officers encourage us to call in suspicious activities either to the Police Non-Emergency number (972-485-4840) or 911.  They don't necessarily mind us using 911, because a small crime might fit into a higher-level case that they've been working on.

They also pointed out the value of recording serial#'s of valuables.  Not only does it increase the chances of getting you property back (all the pawn shops now feed into a central database), but it helps them win convictions.  They said that if you engrave a drivers license number on an item, it almost guarantees that no pawn shop will ever try to sell it.

There were quite a bit of stories & feedback from attendees to the NPO's, and I won't make an attempt to summarize them.  Same goes for the various topics from attendee-to-attendee that occured before Barbara adjourned the meeting at about 8:10pm