Council Member Story holds Neighborhood Watch meeting in LaFayette

BY JOHN BRICE

THE LAFAYETTE SUN

LAFAYETTE — LaFayette City Council Member for District D Charlene Story welcomed members of the community to a Neighborhood Watch meeting at The Venue on Thursday, May 21. With the goal of preventing crime and increasing community safety, Story explained how she recently began the effort to organize these meetings.

"It came about when I had a citizen inform me about outdated signage on [Hwy.] 77," she said. "When I went to the chief of police to ask how would you get that signage corrected. That is when I asked him, 'Do we have an active neighborhood watch?' He informed me that we did not have an active neighborhood watch. I decided that I wanted to take on that task of having a neighborhood watch not just for my district, but for the entire city of LaFayette. We had our very first meeting, we had a couple of people there and we just talked about ways that we can look out for each other."

Story shared her long-term vision for holding a regularly scheduled Neighborhood Watch meeting for the community. 

"From that meeting the people that were there echoed that they would like to see more of these meetings," she said. "I decided that I would mostly have these meetings every quarter but before that I wanted to get more topics to discuss. Right now, I am doing it every two months so that I can hopefully get the citizens more engaged."

Story said she is working to include other community leaders to benifit all of LaFayette. 

"This last meeting that we just had was a great one," she said. "We had LaFayette Fire Chief Jim Doody and LaFayette Police Department Lt. Hill. Chief Doody talked about the 911 addresses [and that] a lot of people don't have their house number on their mailbox. When 911 is called it is hard for them to locate the homes due to that or [the numbers] are not visible.During that conversation, we found out that a citizen that was there does not have a mailbox, and when you look at her address on Google it does not take you to her house. Her address is not in the 911 database. Chief Doody told her how she can contact the right people to get that updated." 

Feedback from citizens is another aspect of Neighborhood Watch that Story said she wants to focus on. 

"Randy Talley was there and he gave some insight on how we can be more vocal to our elderly people and women to get the knowledge out that if there is a flyer on their windshield, don't touch it, when they are pumping their gas, they are locking their doors," she said. "If someone is knocking on their door, make sure they aren't going to their door if they don't know who it is. Call 911 first to make sure if that person is supposed to be at their house."

Story said locals can look forward to learning from public safety officials at the meetings. 

"Lt. Hill was there and shared the knowledge that if a police officer is behind you and you don't feel safe pulling over you can call 911, put your hazard lights on and let them know that you don't feel safe pulling over right now but will once you get to a well lit area," she said. "So far, I feel like it is going in the right direction. The more meetings that we have, the more people will start getting engaged."