COM 0140.049 2002-2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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b) Develop community capacity by: l) establishing local area CEO community councils; and 2) encouraging the active participation of community organizations and citizens in efforts to prevent and report crime. Informing the public of the CEO project through community meetings was the first step. Groups were encouraged to participate in project efforts to prevent and report crime and actively work to improve the health and safety of their community. An island wide Abandoned Car Task Force was formed and remains active.Three new mobile Neighborhood Watch groups were formed in rural areas of various districts on each side of the island; new, stricter, lease language regarding eviction is in process based on community input and assistance from the Hawaii County Prosecutor's Office to the Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate land managers to curb drug growing/selling/manufacture on their agricultural land island wide. Friends of the Park and community groups, in conjunction with Parks and Recreation are planning and have implemented some County Park improvements to prevent late night noise and illegal/ underage drinking with material and assistance from the department. c) Providing leadership training for community members Training topics continued to arise during community meetings so educational sessions continued. Several sessions of SARA Problem Solving Training, How a Search Warrant Is Written, What Do Street Drugs Look Like? and presentations on Juvenile Drug Court were completed for the interested communities. Facilitators and district team participants have attended Domestic Violence Advocacy training, Fundraising "how to" sessions. We were committed to on-going training as topics arose. Many communities now know which resources to contact for trainings and presentations and are comfortable doing so. The Prosecutor's Office and the Community Policing Department will remain the liaisons for this. d) Develop public awareness ofsafety issues and resources The district facilitators actively assisted their district teams to identify and work on issues specific to their communities and to engage the appropriate private and public decision makers in the process. It became clear that the communities with active, visible Community Policing Officers and involved community associations feel more empowered to report crime and stay involved. e) Establish an island -wide communication network As an outgrowth of the Solutions 2002 conference, there is now a Neighborhood Watch e-mail list which is currently at 400 addresses and expanding daily. CEO utilized this as an information distribution system for upcoming training and as a mechanism for direct feedback. Video conferencing with many of these neighborhood groups was held periodically at four sites simultaneously around the island. This mechanism remains available through the Prosecutor's Offices in both Hilo and Kona. The North Kohala facilitator published a newsletter specific to CEO activities for all facilitators to contribute to which was published and distributed through the Prosecutor's Office to approximately 130 people and organizations.(see enclosed copies)