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Northfield Neighborhood - Meeting Minutes - 01/07/08 The meeting was convened at 7:05 by president Sebastian Wren. The meeting began with introductions around the room. Approximately 28 people were in attendance. Treasurer's Report: Current balance is $1,431.62. Previous balance was $1,982.00. Income was $225.00 in membership dues and newsletter ad revenue -- Expenditures were $776.97 for newsletter printing and National Night Out. Neighborhood Watch: Michelle Page shared information about the Northfield Neighborhood Watch program. She reported that 39 Block Captains have been recruited, and that $540.00 was raised in donations for Neighborhood Watch signs. The signs purchased so far are scheduled to be up this week. Page reports that crime has already started dropping in the neighborhood based on APD statistics -- there were 27 burglaries in Sept-Oct of 2007, and there were 13 burglaries in Nov-Dec of 2007. Page requested an additional $300 from the NNA to purchase 11 to 12 additional signs. This would raise their total donations to $600 with matching funds from concerned neighbors. Each sign costs $31.85 plus $15.00 for anti-graffiti coating. Page has created a Yahoo group for the neighborhood watch (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/northfieldwatch/) and webmaster Jen Duthie has placed a link to the group from the Northfield website. Page will poll block captains for ideas about locations for future signs. People are encouraged to send Page suggestions at her e-mail address michelle-page99@yahoo.com 7:21 p.m. -- Wren motioned to dedicate $300 of NNA funds for installation of Neighborhood Watch signs. Jan Seward seconded the motion. Discussion: Jen Duthie asked what was the ideal spacing for the signs. Page reported that she knew of no recommendations. Page wants enough signs to give the Neighborhood Watch visibility. Vote: Motion passed unanimously. Guest Speaker: Wren introduced APD Detective Kevin Bartles who was invited to speak about surveillance systems and graffiti and vandalism in the neighborhood. Bartles has 20 years of experience in the APD working property crimes. Recently Bartles was assigned to run the new COA Graffiti Unit. Bartles complained that there are systematic problems at the APD -- for example, with over 10,000 calls to 311 about graffiti vandalism, only 454 of the calls resulted in cases filed to the APD. The problem is that the 311 operator can not open a case -- the caller must request that an officer contact the caller and open a case. Most people are not willing to put up with the hassle of bureaucracy. Bartles also said that the law is getting tougher on this kind of crime, but it is still up to a detective to put together a strong case. Each individual crime may not be very substantial, but when a detective can show that one person has committed many small crimes, they add up to Class A Misdemeanor or a State Felony. Bartles complained that Texas is more lenient than other states and that Austin is more lenient than Texas as a whole. Bartles also complained that with so few cases actually being reported to the APD, there are very limited resources for fighting this type of crime. Bartles provided a slide-show and made numerous recommendations for preventing property crime, including: Call in anything suspicious at all -- better safe than sorry. The police do not mind being called out on a suspicious person report. Demand that a police officer be dispatched and that a case number be assigned. Take digital pictures of the graffiti, and file them with the police report. Ensure that the graffiti is removed promptly -- graffiti attracts more graffiti. Do not share pictures of the graffiti through the website or media -- the notoriety encourages more graffiti. Purchase and use a video surveillance system. Bartles described many of the camera systems that are available, and presented examples of how they have been used successfully. He also described some common mistakes that people make when using video surveillance systems, and recommended solutions to those mistakes. He stated that many of the surveillance systems are very cost affordable -- while many companies will charge tens of thousands of dollars for a monitored system, an individual or business owner can purchase and install one themselves for less than $200. Even low-light, infrared systems can be very inexpensive. Bartles asked people with more questions or comments to get in touch with him through e-mail at Kevin.Bartles@ci.austin.tx.us. The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 p.m.
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