Troubled Block Watch Program Seeks Revitalization In/Around: Nevada/Lidgerwood

Neighborhood leaders are trying to revitalize Block Watch in Nevada/Lidgerwood, while the city’s program is sending out a cry for help.

At a quarterly Neva-Wood Block Watch meeting Tuesday, more than 40 people were encouraged to recruit help and were given tips on how to prevent crime in their neighborhoods.

The Block Watch crime prevention program in Neva-Wood has had trouble since an exodus of volunteers from the COPS shop substation in early March stalled ongoing activities.

At the same time, the city’s Block Watch program has been losing gusto. Cuts from Initiative 695 eliminated three positions from the city Block Watch program, which is now being operated with less money out of the neighborhood substations.

Block Watch is responsible for 168 neighborhood policing activities throughout Spokane.

Maurece Vulcano, one of the Neva-Wood volunteers who did not resign in March, took over as site coordinator for the substation’s Block Watch program six weeks ago.

Of the 11,000 households in the Nevada/Lidgerwood neighborhood, Vulcano said there are 122 active Block Watch representatives, formerly known as captains.

Vulcano hopes to improve participation.

“My whole drive is to make people aware of how important it is to get interested in Block Watch,” said Vulcano, who has been mailing literature to residents and working the phones to solicit help.

Vulcano has some assistance in the newly-formed alliance between the Neva-Wood COPS shop and the Nevada/Lidgerwood Neighborhood Council. The organizations have worked through the grief that caused the resignations of 17 volunteers and the substation’s president.

Now the two organizations share space, projects, and volunteer labor at the substation headquarters, built by the council, at 4705 N. Addison.

At Tuesday night’s quarterly meeting, city Block Watch coordinator Susan Greninjer, the lone paid employee for the crime prevention program, asked people to donate their time.

“I’m the filer, the janitor, the secretary. We are really limited,” Greninjer said. “Now Block Watch is mainly focused on saving itself. It’s going to be up to the volunteers to save the program. It can’t survive with one and a half people.”

Neva-Wood neighbors got a Block Watch tutorial between recruitment speeches at the meeting.

Neighborhood resource officer Duane Willmschen told the audience about 143 drug houses in the area and the Safe Streets program in place to eradicate them.

Willmschen also reported that organized Block Watch groups that meet regularly see 25 percent less crime.

Greninjer said the best deterrent from crime, especially burglaries, is to turn on lights from dusk until dawn.

“Two 60 watt light bulbs is the best insurance you can get,” Greninjer said.

Sandy Richards, crime prevention specialist for the Spokane Police Department, also talked about a number of crime-fighting strategies: Keep the lights, television and radio on when you leave your home. Keep the garage closed and doors locked and engrave all your property with serial numbers.

“You don’t have to go out and get weapons and pit bulls. Just do simple, smart things,” Richards said.