LEWISTON – If things are safer and quieter along Horton Street these days, Carolee Taylor gives credit to winter weather and not efforts by neighbors.
Give the neighbors a few months, however, and that might change.
“We have a lot of different things going on,” Taylor said. “Mainly, we’re just trying to get something going and make the street habitable.”
Taylor and about 30 downtown neighbors have been meeting each month since August with Lewiston Police Officer Tom Murphy, looking for ways to clean up their streets and make things safer for everyone.
They have a lot of plans, such as expanding the McGruff safe house program for children and creating a neighborhood watch program. Mostly, though, they want to build a neighborhood that’s impervious to crime.
“If we work as a community to get things done, there’s no telling where it ends,” Taylor said. “Maybe we can get some businesses to come in, and convince landlords to fix up their properties. If we show some pride, maybe we can turn things around.”
Taylor said one plan is to double the number of McGruff safe houses in the neighborhood. Neighbors agreed to make their homes or businesses a safe place for local kids walking home from school. There are currently six safe houses downtown.
“If the kid sees that McGruff picture, that’s a place they can go to and feel safe and call whoever they need to call,” Taylor said.
Moe Landry, owner of Moe’s Styling Center on 231 Blake St., said his shop has been a McGruff safe house for two years. He’s never had a kid stop in, however.
“Maybe the area’s not as bad as people seem to think,” he said.
But Landry said he has attended one of the meetings. It can’t hurt, he said.
“It sounds like it’s just trying to get people to do what they should do all along,” he said. You don’t need a neighborhood group to be good neighbors.
The group hopes to attack just about every critical aspect of the neighborhood. They’ll work with the city Public Works Department to have more streetlights installed to brighten gloomy streets. They’ll work with city code enforcement officials and landlords to get properties cleaned up. They’ll work with local schools and police to move teens out of the streets and into the schools. And they’ll work with police to be good neighbors – reporting crimes when they see them.
It’s the best way to clean up a neighborhood, according to Murphy.
“You can send 20 officers down there daily, and that may make things better,” Murphy said. “But things go right back to the way they were as soon as those officers leave. You need the people in the community to step forward, and that’s when things start to change.”
Mug Me Street’
“I call Horton Street Mug Me Street,'” Taylor said. Neighbors tell her they’re often too frightened to call police.
“You see people selling drugs, kids wandering around, and nobody wants to do anything,” Taylor said.
Neighbor Dawn Harris, another member of the group, said it wasn’t always like this.
“From where I stand, Horton Street is a problem area, and that didn’t just happen over night,” Harris said. “A solution won’t happen overnight, either.”
Taylor said she approached Murphy over the summer, while he was responding to a call in the neighborhood. She was tired of being woken up in the middle of the night by rowdy teens, having her car keyed when she called police, and then being told by police there was little they could do.
Murphy said he talked it over with his superior, Sgt. David St. Pierre. He suggested creating a community action group. Murphy serves as a liaison between the neighbors and city, putting them in touch with other city officials when necessary.
“I tell them this is not about what I can do for them, but what I can help them do themselves,” Murphy said. “By themselves, they’re just people. But when they work together, they have a voice that’s much harder to ignore.”
So far the group has met with city public works officials, code enforcement staff and truant officers. They’ve invited city councilors to their next meeting on March 8 to talk about crime, traffic, parking and giving the area an earlier curfew.
Comments are no longer available on this story