Symmes Neighborhood Watch & Safety

By Mike A. "Howell" Howell

We need to bring back the Symmes Neighborhood Watch & Safety into one new committee.

We'll start with a group of about 5 residents then build on that as the scope expands. It would be ideal to finally have someone represent each neighborhood throughout the township. This group would meet each month with the purpose of discovering what reported/unreported crime activity is going on in neighborhoods, common ground between them, joining ideas, and come up with solutions. Added to this group would be representatives from the Symmes police and fire departments. Together they would use their expertise and knowledge to obtain a safer Symmes.

Once familiar with their roll we could add to the scope of their duties. Quarterly we could have a regional meeting with representatives of the surrounding communities, Sycamore Township, Miami Township,, Loveland, Montgomery, and Indian Hill. We would meet to join forces in fighting crime that in a lot of cases crosses community boundaries. I have noticed that over the past few years crimes committed in Symmes neighborhoods have started in another police district, entered into ours, continued into yet a third and from there going into possibly yet another unknown area. Sometimes this goes unnoticed either because of lack of communication or these crimes go unreported. Our new group could resolve these issues and address them.

Some of the issues addressable at these meetings could range from neighborhood traffic, speeding, criminal damage, excessive neighborhood noise, parking and drugs to name a few. The exchange of information at these meeting would be invaluable to police when tracking crime activities both regionally and within Symmes.

The scope of this group would not stop at crime but include safety issues. The most pressing safety issue in the township is the Polk Run flooding. This is addressed in my second position paper but to summarize, the flood in 2001 cost residents thousands of dollars in property damage and loss of property value. This greatest cost was in the loss of life. Resolving this issue must come from a regional consensus. The watershed of Polk Run fans into Sycamore, Montgomery, Loveland, and Deerfield. This issue must be addressed before we have a repeat of this same fluke weather event.

It is imperative that this committee be enacted as soon as possible. The local issues alone will be a huge task to tackle and will lengthen the time before regional issues can be addressed. The quicker we engage this committee the sooner issues can be enacted on. This has waited too long.

Michael Howell Camp Dennison Symmes Township