« Garden Art Project on Broadway | Home | Our Lady of Victory »
79th Precinct Community Council Meeting Tonight
By The Changeling | June 27, 2007
The 79th precinct community council meeting will be held tonight, Wednesday, June 27th at 7:00 p.m. at 585 Dekalb Avenue, 2nd Floor (between Walworth Street and Nostrand Avenue).
To find out more about the 79th precinct click here. Community council meetings for the 79th precinct are regularly held on the 4th Wednesday of the month.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Hi Changeling:
Went to the meeting last eve. People trickled in and dispite the rain there was a good number by the close. Here are some of the highlights:
•Announcement of the New Scholarship Fund set up by the Council. Recipient was announced along with their college plans – Cornell University!!!
•Councilman Vann’s office has set up a Safety Task force and a representative urged people to join the Safety Task Force. Be a voice and participate call 718.419.0740 if you are interested.
•A rep. from he Majors office spoke about block parties and the importance of following procedures. Get your applications in on time – 60 days or NO PARTY. She and the Pct. Commander communicated that there will be strict in enforcement of guidelines and procedure.
•The new commander of the 79th, Donald Lyons was present with a number of other law enforcement reps.
- He gave some crime stats that are troubling if the trend continues – upward that is. The area is up 11 crimes this year and we have 6 more months to go.
- He is planning some kind of a community outreach initiative in an effort to open up communication with members of the community, as we all know that much of the success law enforcement has with solving crimes really comes down to community members’ willingness to reach out to and confide in the police.
- Friday? He is thinking about doing a little informal BBQ in the park. If you want to confirm the date or join him I suggest you call the Community Affairs at the precinct and confirm.
•There was a public forum where people were allowed to make some comments publicly about issues in their area. It is my understanding that this is relatively new and in the recent past was not allowed because the type of behavior it could incite if people were in the mood to be confrontational. Happy to say, it was a peaceful and productive.
•There is a Safety March planned for some time in July 7th or 8th? Call the precinct or Vann’s office to get the correct date.
•There were other announcements, awards, recognitions and a few handouts.
•This was the last meeting until the Council resumes in September. Next meeting date September 26th.
Hope to make it to the next one! Thanks for the reminder.
June 28th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Malcats, may God bless you for writing up the minutes of the meeting! I was there too (sitting on the far left near the front), and I was impressed by the number of people who showed up.
I’ll only add a few extras, because you’ve summed the most important information up so wonderfully.
***Lyons mentioned a Crime Prevention Program in which store owners and homeowners can contact the community affairs office and they will offer you information on ways to crime-proof your home/establishment.
***Lyons noted that his team was having trouble solving some crimes because some people in the neighborhood were not, for whatever reason, willing to offer information to help the police. He asked people to use the community affairs telephone number (718)636-6626 to offer any tips to help police solve crimes. When calling that number you can leave an anonymous tip and you can be assured that your number will not be traced.
***The informal BBQ in Von King park is supposed to be from noon-2:00 p.m. As malcat said, you should call the precinct to confirm. Lyons sounded as though this BBQ was really for area kids, but if you are an adult, and you look hungry enough, I think they’ll be kind enough to share their BBQ with you.
***Transit policeman John DeRose (?) talked about a man who was robbing people in the stairwell of the train stations. He hasn’t done this in Bed-Stuy yet, but he’s been active in the Williamsburg and Clinton Hill precincts, so it looks like he might be moving along the G train line. In each case the suspect robbed the victim as they exited through the stairwell of the station alome.
One final thing on the number of crimes in the area being up by 11 crimes. I’m a stickler when it comes to statistics, and I’d be quick to point out that an 11 crime increase is only statistically significant if the crime numbers are relatively small. If I recall correctly, Sgt. Lyons said that the overall number of crimes at this time last year in the precinct was 935 and this year it is 946. That’s not a statistically significant difference. If the number of crimes last year were 14 and this year 25, then you might want to look deeper into that.
Plus, you can’t compare this year to last year because it was much warmer this winter which translates into more crimes. Statistically control for temperature and then you have a decent comparison. That’s probably more than anyone cares to know about stats, but no one ever said that statistics was for the faint of heart.
Thanks again, Malcats for providing us with the minutes of the community council meeting.
June 29th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
My pleasure . . . and I promise not to make a habit of it :)!
Great point you make about the stats. And really thanks again for the post. Because of you, I contacted a few neighbors and thanks to your post there were two more bodies present. Every household counts.