The Safe Community Coalition
has made some helpful inroads into traffic safety issues in Madison with its
citywide efforts at yard signs and other consciousness-raising efforts. Yet safety is broader than this, and
some of the concerns that neighbors have brought to us can be alarming. As good as they may be, traffic
programs do not address all the concerns that are found under the umbrella of
safety. What about vandalism,
which is a form of urban terrorism?
What about the personal attacks that occur in Madison? Armed robbery, like the episodes at
Mildred’s? Pedestrian safety
– is it safe to walk here, when drunken drivers run into buildings like
Burnies Rock Shop?
Recently a neighbor on North
Baldwin Street mentioned something that she did not report to the
police, but which concerned her.
In late Winter 2002, she happened to notice footprints around her garage
and wondered who might be there.
She went outside to check on the garage and found the door open, with
the smell of gasoline in the air.
Her car was doused in gasoline and, somehow was not yet torched. It left her worried, but she did not
pursue it with the police. A few
weeks later, the Maple Bluff Police let her know that someone whom they
apprehended had indeed confessed to attempting arson.
It is hard to believe that
this would happened in the middle of the Tenney-Lapham Neighborhood. It is also difficult to imagine someone
not reporting the suspicious circumstances to the Madison Police. And it is unsettling to know that our
neighborhood is home to people like this individual, and that it took some
suspicious behavior in Maple Bluff to bring him to the surface.
Another neighbor called not
long ago to tell us about being awoken by noise at the front of her house, and
then discovering that things she thought safe to leave on her porch were
destroyed in the middle of the night.
Apparently some people walking home near Baldwin and Sherman were
intrigued by what was on her porch.
As with the other person, this neighbor did not call the police, and we
suggested that she file a report for the sake of having yet another report on
file.
These episodes are what the
police would describe as quality of life issues, not life-threatening
crimes. Yet does it take a
fatality to make the issues important?
What has to happen to make us more sensitive to these symptoms of unsafe
behavior. When we raise
these kinds of issues with the mayor, we quickly learn that we should be
prepared to pay even higher taxes if we want them to be covered. Yet what price safety?
Perhaps we are too patient
with these safety concerns.
Perhaps we should raise cane when we find footprints and cry out when we
find evidence of prowlers.
In talking about zoning
issues with some neighbors on the near-West Side, we learned of orientation
get-togethers for students and new residents. At those meetings, the members of one neighborhood
association regularly remind the newcomers of expected behavior in that
neighborhood. This, as we learned,
includes where and when to park – no illegal parking tolerated; no
friends allowed to park on lawns except for football Saturdays, etc. They tell the newcomers how loud music
can be before they call the police, and remind them that there should be no
noise after 10:00 p.m. This
astounded us, and we wondered whether we were still in Madison. Yet is this the responsibility of a
neighborhood association?
When told that we should
consider a potluck to cover such issues, it was hard to swallow, let alone
respond. Yet those neighborhoods
seem to be safer, seem to be quieter, seem disposed to residential living. Are we safer by taking such a stand. Or should we just cultivate a lower
threshold of tolerance? How safe
are we when we confront our neighbors in this way? How much to we raise the bar for irresponsible
reactions. If anyone thinks that
tempers on the road flare easily, try telling individuals on East Johnson or
East Gorham Sts. not to cut through the lawn! The usual response makes road rage seem tame in
comparison.
Strategies for Now
If we want to cultivate a
comfortable, residential neighborhood, we really need to make the city aware of
the episodes that challenge our quality of life. When calling the police, we should not even apologize about
it. “I’m just
calling…” is too kind a start of that call to the dispatcher. Rather, “I would like to report…” If dispatch tells us it is too busy, we
have to call back until we get something reported. It’s persistence that makes the difference. Our west-side neighbors did not succeed
on the first try or a single attempt!
We need to make the
Tenney-Lapham Neighborhood look safe, too. It’s time to have better lighting. We need to report streetlights that are
out and to encourage others to do the same. We need to use our own lights, too. If some of the leasing companies do not
make for well-lit pathways, our tenants need to lobby for improvements and all
of us should back them.
We also need to be present
in the neighborhood, to show our faces outside our doors. We cannot shrink into the Lazy-Boy and
expect that things will be all right.
We should make our presence known, and encourage others to do the same.
These strategies may not
help at first. The second attempts
may not yield much. And it’s
not going to make a difference if only one person tries. Yet we are in this together. After all, there’s safety in
numbers – let’s be part of those numbers that make a difference and
create a safe neighborhood
- Jim
Zychowicz, Sal Calomino
Safety Chairs
Return to Summer 2002 Table of Contents