Break Down Of Tonight's Community Meeting On Starting Neighborhood Watches

There was an hour and a half meeting today at the Mark Twain Library centered on starting a neighborhood watch. Community watches are started when a small group of neighbors get together. One of those members attends there Division Leadership Forums, which take place bimonthly, and passes on what they learn to other community members within their watch. The next Leadership Forum is Wednesday 08/26/2015 and the topic will be gangs.

The questions at the meeting about starting meetings centered around what to do when neighbors do not get along and how to handle communication difficulties when neighbors speak different languages. First remember sometimes reaching out to your neighbors is how these issues are best dealt with. And if your common ground includes a safer neighborhood, there's a good chance that some of those differences will seem less important in the long run. When trying to meet your neighbors for the first time, it's recommended to start small like reaching out to your own apartment complex first, before reaching out to a greater network of neighbors. 

Neighborhoods can use events like National Night Out as an opportunity to meet more neighbors. National Night Out is a community-police awareness-raising event in the United States, held the first Tuesday of August. Texas and Florida have the option to use the alternate date of the first Tuesday in October to avoid hot weather While National Night Out has passed this year, those speaking at the meeting remind us it's really easy to hold a free event, like the potlucks that often take place in Wrigley, and use that as an opportunity to say hello to the people living next door.

What do you do if you and your neighbors don't speak the same language?

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ឧទ្យាន បិទ នៅពេលព្រលប

Do you know what this says? If Google Translator is correct, it's "The park closes at dusk," in Khmer. It was correctly pointed out at the meeting because all the signs in MacArthur Park are exclusively in English a good portion of MacArthur Park/ Whittier residents would not know the park's closing time. In other words, be sensitive to the fact that language barriers may prevent others from having the same information you do, especially when reaching out to your neighbors.

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On a more general level, the attending police did remind everyone that the West Division is the largest division in Long Beach with 225 officers assigned to the area. There are four resource officers that can handle more long term problems such as nuisance buildings. Additionally, there are two Quality of Life officers who spend a great deal of time helping the neighborhood homeless residents to get back on their feet. For anyone west of Cherry and South of the 405 you would get a hold of one of those resource officers by emailing LBPBWest@LongBeach.Gov. Since part of this neighborhood, as defined by NextDoor is east of Cherry, you would simply change the word "West" in that email address to east and then send the same mail.