43
Community police focus on housing issues
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
The first six months of the city’s Community Police Unit have been focused on housing issues.
The unit, formed by police Chief Robin Lees, has an officer assigned to each of the city’s seven wards. The officer works with that ward’s council member and other members of the community on specific issues.
The idea is to have those officers deal with some issues for which people often call 911 – thus freeing up officers on patrol to take other calls.
From July through November, the unit referred 93 properties to the city’s housing department for code- enforcement violations, according to the department. Statistics for December are not yet available.
CPU members also have made 42 felony and 47 misdemeanor arrests in the same time period, thanks mostly to weekly crime sweeps of neighborhoods with members of the vice squad. On two of those sweeps, on Delaware Avenue and Halls Heights, members of the housing department also accompanied the police.
Detective Sgt. Pat Kelly, who heads the unit, said quality-of-life issues are important and that when members visit block watches, often the No. 1 item discussed is blight.
Beginning this week, members of the unit also will step up enforcement of the city’s new quality-of-life ordinance. Among its infractions are barking and howling dogs, storing junk and inoperable motor vehicles in public, burning trash, dumping garbage, illegally parking vehicles and playing loud music.
Members have been issuing warnings since November, but now citations will be issued.
Kelly said the Mahoning County Juvenile Probation office wants to take part in the unit’s crime sweeps this year. The unit’s first sweep was in the 6th Ward in September and other sweeps have been done on the West Side. Kelly said the areas targeted for sweeps are determined by current crime rates and patterns.
Lees said the sweeps have been effective in helping to clamp down on crime.
“Any time you show a concentrated enforcement effort in a particular area, you’re going to have an impact,” Lees said.
Lees said he is happy with the unit’s operations for the first six months but said there’s room for improvement.
“There’s still growth for this, but they’re filling a need,” Lees said.
Lees said he would like to see more residents referred by members of the unit to other agencies that can help them with neighborhood problems.
A member of one of the city’s block watches, Eleanor Sipp of the 4 Square Block Watch on the South Side, said she likes the concept because residents can speak to officers first-hand about their concerns for their neighborhoods.
She said she is particularly pleased with the officer assigned to her area, Jose A. Morales Jr. She said Morales comes to every meeting and is readily available to residents if they have any concerns or questions.
“If I call him for anything, he is always there,” Sipp said.