| March 1st, 2018

Neighborhood Public Safety Initiative – A Public Service Collective

By: journeymagazine

By| Lauren Coleman

The Neighborhood Public Safety Initiative started to protect and serve the people within specific neighborhoods. The NPSI started in the Summer of 2017 because of inadequate policing methods.

The beginning stages for the NPSI started with a walk-through of this Frenchtown, Griffin and Bond communities to see what exactly needed to be addressed. These neighborhoods share some common concerns including the safety of children, crime, abandon homes and beautification issues.

The purpose of the walk-through in these neighborhoods is to understand what the neighbors are seeing on a day-to-day basis and how they perceive their neighborhood.

Cynthia Barber, Assistant City Manager for Community Engagement and Public Safety and leader of this initiative said “If this were to work, we need the people that live in the neighborhood to take ownership of the program and initiative and tell us when and how we can assist them.”

These neighborhoods are being used to start this initiative to address the crimes rate. The initiative is only at its beginning stages and is expected to move on to other areas. The organizations that are involved with the NPSI are The City of Tallahassee, FAMU, FSU, TCC Police Departments, Big Bend Crime Stoppers, Leon County Sheriffs Office, State Attorney Office, City TEMPO program, and many others.

The Tallahassee Police department plays a significant role within the initiative. Michael DeLeo, Tallahassee Police Chief understands the purpose for this program. It is important to him and the police staff that the residents are giving them feedback about what the police can do to help improve their neighborhoods. “The community would be the eyes and the ears to share information with us to address their concerns, know what’s going on and making sure that we are putting the efforts in the right areas,” said DeLeo.

For DeLeo, this initiative is important for not only the community but also because the police department. He is accepting his role in creating community engagement.  

Community engagement is priority for this initiative to work within the community. The Frenchtown, Griffin and Bond communities all have neighborhood associations that have paired together with the city and other departments in the push for the Public Safety Initiative.

Cheryl Collier-Brown, Chair of Frenchtown’s Neighborhood Improvement Association understands the role that her organization plays for the initiative to come together. “We need to invest our time and be expressive and be strong about what we want and how they should do it,” said Collier-Brown.  With the changes coming to Frenchtown, it is important to have neighborhood involved to keep the history within the area.

The Bond Community came together and asked many questions that needed answers. The residents of the area were all involved and engaged with the program. Talethia Edwards, President of the Greater Bond Neighborhood Association feels that the initiative should help residents identify the problems are with the neighborhood. “It is so important to have citizen engagement, so many of us are involved, we have so many different things in what the priority should be. We can set those priorities and check the list off,” said Edwards.

The results of the initiative within Frenchtown, Griffin and Bond community will determine what needs to be looked at and handled while trying to expand into other neighborhoods.