Watch For Your Block Captains!

Hello LMJ Neighborhood Watch members,

Your Block Captains met a few weeks ago to prepare for our next level of our Neighborhood Watch program.  For the past 3 yrs we have done everything by email – and we have 380 homes out of 565 participating.  But we want to make sure that EVERY home in our community is aware of our program, and knows about the recent crimes.  

We want EVERYONE to have the opportunity to join up – and we also want our current members to have a local contact for their street.  I am so impressed by our community – we have over 40 residents that have stepped up to volunteer to help with this process.  Most streets have block captains, and we also have volunteers that are helping to spread the word to streets that did not have a block captain to make sure that EVERYONE is aware of our Watch Program if they would like to participate.  

Please remember – Block Captains are NOT Police Officers!  Our  Watch Program helps us spread the word so we can all be more aware of what is going on in our community and hopefully make it more difficult so that the thieves will get caught or go elsewhere.

Block Captains going door to door with DECALS

Our Block Captains and volunteers will be knocking on doors over the next few weeks.  They have a bright yellow hat with “LMJ NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH” on the hat – so you will know who they are.  They are YOUR neighbors - Please Welcome them and Thank them for their time!  They will be introducing themselves and checking to make sure we have correct contact information and signing up new members.  

As residents suggested at our meeting in March, we have ordered “LMJ” window decals to represent the Lake Mary Jane Community that we all live in.  This will help as we are looking for suspicious vehicles and can recognize  our own residents’ vehicles.  We did not want the decal to say “Neighborhood Watch” because we don’t want to send out the message that we have a crime problem since crime is normally rare out here.  Instead – most of our residents will be proud to have a “local” decal that just has “LMJ” for our Lake Mary Jane rural settlement community that we are ALL part of.  

There are 2 types of decals – one goes on the inside of your car – but we found that it doesn’t show well on tinted windows – so you can also use them on boats, motorcycle windshields, golf carts, or even on a front window in your home.  We ordered more stickers to go on the outside of cars with tinted windows.  We are asking residents to put one of these decals on your back window in the upper right corner. 

DONATIONS

We have spent almost $800 on these decals, plus money on the block captains hats and signs for our meetings.  We looked into the option of grant money – but it takes months to get the funding and only covers 25% of the members.  So I have put the purchases on my credit card – and have faith that our residents will help chip in to cover the expenses.  The block captains will be giving out these window decals and asking for a minimum donation of 50 cents per decal – but I’m hoping that residents will be willing to donate $5 - $10 per household.  If we cover all the current expenses, then any extra money we collect will be used to purchase additional items as decided by our Neighborhood Watch member suggestions. 

Watch Updates

Thanks to all of you for helping to keep your eyes open!  There are still some very suspicious things happening out here – such as a Red Kia Spectra that was parked at the dead end of Capri overnight last week – and it had the tail lights spray painted black so you couldn’t see it at night from behind.  The police got involved and by lunch time residents saw 3 Hispanic men and one Afro American man come out of the woods.  The cops were called again and they found the car driving on Narcoossee Rd.  The 4 men told the police that they were camping (on private property?)  If you see this car out here again – call the police.   There were also 3 break-ins recently in NorthShore where they broke into the condos by either kicking down doors or breaking windows.  These break-ins were during the day. 

Don’t let your guard down!

Suzanne Arnold

LMJ Neighborhood Watch