Hot Town, Public Safety in the City
Jane Ames
Public safety can be defensive and dramatic: Late night shootings in different parts of the City, robberies or assaults taking place, parties that get out of control and property or people getting hurt, drug deals and abuse, or identity theft destroying people’s lives. The list is long; people’s ability to harm themselves and others can’t be underestimated. The reaction to these events involves law enforcement and other public safety services. It’s dramatic, and often the outcomes are complicated and painful to many involved. We must have an effective public safety system because of these issues. On Wednesday, Sept. 14th the City Council will vote on a Resolution (Click here to read it) Sam has been working on to develop a City/County Public Safety Partnership so the resources our City and County taxpayers spend on keeping our community safe will be used efficiently and effectively. That’s big picture: policy, budgeting and the like. It is what you depend on your public servants to design and implement.
That's one end of a very wide spectrum of public safety. At the other end it's less dramatic, it is proactive rather than defensive, and it's subtle enough to often not look like public safety. But I think it’s where the bulk of public safety happens. It takes place when neighbors say hello to each other, and pay attention to how each other, our kids, and elderly parents are doing. People slow down and walk across the street near enough to someone who moves slowly in case the pedestrian light turns red…not so close as to be intimidating, mind you. Neighbors who live by a bus stop “work in their garden” while the kids wait for the bus, so there's an adult present. Pay attention when someone is acting suspiciously, randomly opens mailboxes, or appears to be checking out a neighbor’s house. Don’t buy kids toy guns that look so real they're frightening to those don’t know the “guns” are toys. Slow down at the intersection and give someone a break, even if it is “your right of way”. These are individual actions, or maybe a few people, nothing really organized.
But there are the organized events. Sam blogged about National Night Out. Portland had over 100 parties that night alone; some of them had hundreds of participants, others had 10 or 20. Every one was effective. Information gets shared, people know each other a little better; you talk and laugh together; you learn which kid goes with what adult and lives in the green house on the corner. And the events were fun.
We also attended the 5th annual “Back to School Summer Jam” in northeast Portland. Sam spoke (Click here to read Sam's speech)to a huge crowd busy playing hoops, doing crafts and games, listening to live music, enjoying a picnic lunch, getting bags of school supplies, and picking up lots of information for folks. It’s a great community building event put on by The Safe Place and hosted by The International Fellowship Family, Providence Health System, KOIN-TV, Corporate Express, Safeway, and 24 Hour Fitness. Strong community is anti-crime; it reaches to the best in us. By the way, thank you to Charlene Mashia and Safe Place Director, Pastor Steven Holt for inviting us to the event. Your work is important to our City.
Montavilla Neighborhood Association hosted a Neighborhood Fair on August 20th. Sam and I arrived just as it was getting going. Sandra McDaniels and many volunteers were organizing all the booths. It was great to see people come to the tables and want to know more about their neighborhood. Keep your eye on Montavilla folks; we suspect it may well be the next neighborhood district to take off. It has great location near Mt. Tabor, a business district with good businesses now and room for more, neighborhoods with nice little houses on good size lots, wonderful pizza, good restaurants and a great new coffee shop/cafe. And it has neighbors who have been there 50 years like Alka, and just a few years like Elaine, who are interested in developing a thriving neighborhood. Some people will tell you Montavilla has issues, and I will respond by saying the balance has now shifted: I think there more people and more energy to build the neighborhood than to weight it down. It takes work and commitment, and people wanting a great neighborhood; Montavilla has that.
Lents Neighborhood had their Picnic in the Park, with a parade, and baseball and soccer. Every year the Lents picnic pulls in the crowds and looks like a modern urban version of a Rockwell painting. Barbecues are grilling here and there, picnics galor, families and teenagers clustering around backstops and the soccer field boundaries. Sam has been in several parades there and I have been in two now. It is at least as much fun to be in the parade as to watch it. It's a casual parade with neighbors, bikes and this year a great drum corp. As everyone made their way around Lents Park, people on one side of the street waved and chatted from their yards or porches. On the parkside, folks stopped what they were doing to holler "hello" and wave as we went by. Several people remembered Sam from other events, meetings, or parades and came over to shake hands or give him a hug. It's a fun event. Thank you to Judy Welch and all the others whose hard work and leadership make it happen. And, yes, this too is public safety. Whenever people are building thriving communities, they are making neighborhoods safer.
Public safety is a responsibility and a right for all of us. Sometimes it's intense and complicated, other times it's downright neighborly. These two views makes it sound clear-cut and not so difficult; it is difficult. The causes, the impacts on people's lives and on our communities are complex. Much of what we see and hear in the news is real, and the causes and solutions demand our attention and resources. Some of that attention must come from political leadership, some from public safety providers, but it does also start with each of us. We are our City, and we each and all set the tone for what is Portland.
Thank you
Posted by Jane Ames on September 11, 2005
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Filed Under Events, Northeast Portland, Public Safety, Southeast Portland (inner)
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