Over the next month, I will be holding two community meetings to exchange ideas on two neighborhood issues, namely crime watches and the future of River Road.
The first meeting is on next Wednesday, May 21 at 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Nathan Bishop Middle School. We will have a panel discussion with Lieutenant Ryan and Captain Stamatakos of the Providence Police Department, and Monica Anderson (Summit neighborhood) and Jay Tavares (West Broadway neighborhood), two residents who help maintain successful crime watches in their neighborhoods. The goal of the meeting is to learn more about how crime watch programs can work. Once the presenters have introduced the program to the community, those in attendance will have an opportunity to ask questions of the panel about neighborhood crime watches, as well as the more general issue of how residents and the police can work together to reduce crime.
The second meeting will take place Thursday, June 12 at 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Nathan Bishop Middle School. At that meeting we will discuss the proposal of some residents in the Paterson Street area to convert River Road to a 1-way southbound street in order to support the development of a park by the river. I am hoping that the meeting will provide a forum for a discussion about the pros and cons of this proposal, as well as a discussion of other alternatives, including but certainly not limited to the status quo.
Both of these issues have generated intense interest among some community members in email traffic. While the emails are useful, people are largely talking past each other in making their points. If either or both of these issues concern you, please make every effort to attend so that we can have a constructive dialogue that will increase our understanding and hopefully lead to progress.
Thank you for your consideration.