Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The Linn County Neighborhood Watch Council met July 27 to review its accomplishments over the past year, and it counted up some successes in cleaning up neighborhoods throughout the county.
The countywide group has worked in three different areas over the past year, Community Services Specialist Jo Ann McQueary said at the meeting, held at the Linn County Sheriff’s Office. McQueary is one of two Sheriff’s Office representatives working with Neighborhood Watch groups.
The group met on June 21, 2005 and came up with plans for the next year, McQueary said. After putting together its leadership and organizing the group, building a mission statement and writing bylaws and defining the Sheriff’s Office’s role, the group created three special subcommittees.
These included groups dedicated to crime deterrence, assisting and promoting Neighborhood Watch groups and finding guest speakers as well as producing a monthly publication.
The Watch Council meets at 7 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of every month at a rotating location throughout the county. Any Neighborhood Watch group is welcome to send a representative.
“It’s been a great opportunity for neighborhoods to get together and discuss things,” Undersheriff Will McAnulty said. The group has come along really well in the last year or so. I think it’s going great.”
“What it’s meant for Linn County is profound in Sweet Home,” McQueary said. She points to two Neighborhood Watch groups that have found enormous success in changing their neighborhoods, the Mountain Shadows Trailer Park group and the Liberty area.
They “have made enormous differences in their environments and livability and desirability of their areas,” McQueary said.
The Liberty group is in celebration mode right now, she said. When the group started last year, the neighborhood had four to five drug houses. Now they have zero drug houses.
The council provides an opportunity for groups like these to network “and just support each other,” McQueary said. “They share activities and ideas that have worked in other areas.
“My original plan was to bring these wonderful, bright and energetic people together,” McQueary said. She would help get the council organized and established. “I kind of held the door for them and watched them go to it.”
The council provides a larger voice, which gives Linn Watch groups a stronger voice with legislators, she said. This group also was a consultant during the planning stages of the Linn County Drug Forum.
“This is the grass roots of our county,” McQueary said. “So they’re regarded as residential experts.”
As a result, the council has caught the attention of courts, prosecutors and legislators, she said.
The Neighborhood Watch groups are “an extra set of eyes and ears for the little things we’re always looking for,” McAnulty said.
The council and the groups throughout the county have been a big help to police, McAnulty said. The council provided assistance as the Sheriff’s Office investigated a murder case at Larwood Park and then started a manhunt. The council and its members helped get posters and information out to the public, although the suspect was later apprehended in Alsea.
The group will regroup, changing leadership and then moving forward, McQueary said. The group will reestablish priorities for the next year.
McQueary will give a presentation on Neighborhood Watch groups in general at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 15 at Sweet Home Police Department. The presentation will be the department’s monthly law enforcement seminar. Everyone is invited.
For more information or to find out the current meeting site for the council, call McQueary at 259-6126.
Cathy Morris started on July 24 as a second Community Services Specialist. The position had been vacant for some time.
“I just love that group,” McQueary said. “It’s just fun to watch them work.”
“They want their neighborhoods back,” Morris said.
“And they know it’s working,” McQueary said. “Your Police Department backs everything we do. We’re all part of the county. Bad guys don’t stop at the city limits.”