Don't Forget Creek Week!

Hi all,

It's that beautiful time of year again to enjoy the outdoors, and celebrate our local natural spaces and waterways. Creek Week is coming up and we could really use your help on Saturday, April 18th to do a little Jan Park Clean-Up for Creek Week activities. We'll meet in the park at 8:00 a.m. and finish by 11 a.m. so that everyone has a chance to get over to Carmichael Park for the free hot dogs, T-shirts, and fun activities for the kids to thank you for helping out. I know it's a busy time of year, so we understand if you have other obligations, but any help, even a 1/2 hour, would be wonderful.

Please bring gardening/work gloves, weeding tools, trash bags, and make sure you have sun protection with you (hat and/or sunscreen). We are so looking forward to sprucing up the park, and showing our community and Carmichael Recreation and Park District how much we care about our beautiful outdoor space! Please give me call or email with any questions, and invite your neighbors and friends!!

Check out the Creek Week website for a list of tons of activities all week long for the whole family!

http://saccreeks.org/


Thanks so much and have a wonderful warm weekend :)

Carmen

Right to Rest SB 608 - What's your opinion?

There is new legislation that has recently been introduced to the CA State Senate that will drastically effect the way law enforcement can handle homeless individuals and loitering in public places. Please take the time to look at this, speak to your neighbors and friends, think about how this may alter what, if anything, our law enforcement representatives can do about areas like Jan Park. I strongly encourage everyone to think about this bill and act, whatever side of the conversation you fall on. Contact our local state representative, Jim Nielsen and let him know your thoughts as citizens within his district. You can find his website at http://nielsen.cssrc.us/ his Capitol office information is:

Capitol Office

State Capitol, Room 4062
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4004
Fax: (916) 651-4904

If this legislation sounds familiar, it's because we saw this introduced in the House as AB-5 a few years ago. http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xhtml

Read up on this new proposed legislation, and share your thoughts with your representatives, the Carmichael Recreation and Park District, the local sheriff's department at the community meeting coming up, and with your neighborhood watch groups.Government is for the governed!


http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/2/homeless-bill-rights.html

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/03/02/18769367.php

After Hours Park Entry Reported

Just wanted to remind people that we keep track of and report anyone who enters the park after hours, and would really appreciate your help in reporting these activities to the Sheriff's Dept, and let me know so I can keep a log for the CRPD folks. More reports means more patrols, and allows me to keep a list so I can prove to CRPD that we have a need for their very limited resources for ranger patrols.

The most recent reported individuals have been wandering the park around 7:30-7:45 p.m. with flashlights and parking near the service entrance in an F250 white truck, and had an additional car (silver 4-dr sedan pontiac?). We have the license plates and have reported the entry into the sheriff's dept and the CRPD folks.

Please feel free to let me know if you observe any suspicious behavior or off hour entry into the park, or have any questions about other behaviors reported. We just want to make sure that people feel safe, the park is being utilized and appreciated for the enjoyment of the public in a respectful and lawful manner, and we very much would like to curb vandalism, trash dumping, graffiti, and other nuisance issues in our lovely park. Thank you to everyone for caring and keeping the park beautiful for everyone!

Graffiti at Jan Park

Morning friends,

In the last week there has been a large amount of spray paint graffiti showing up at Jan Park that is so disconcerting to all of us who have spent so much time and effort working hard to make this park happen, and keep it clean and safe. The Carmichael Recreation and Park District have been amazing at helping us clean this up, but we'd really like to see if we can get the neighborhood out to show these vandals that we're here, we're watching, and we care. So please take a chance to drive by the park on your way to and from work, report suspicious activity of any sort, and perhaps walk the park with your dogs or kids when you can. We also have some street coordinators and BHNA leaders who would like to organize some evening walks just before dark through the park to help protect our lovely resource. If you are interested at all in evening walks with your neighbors, please feel free to do so with your closest neighbors, or email me and we can put together a list of people who might like to loosely organize.

Very Important to Note: Please be safe, walk in groups, do not engage people who are suspicious or are carrying out a crime, and be cautious. Our goal is to present a presence in the park, not to have vigilante behavior or for anyone to put themselves in harm's way.


Graffiti won't stand at Jan Park!

Thank you so much everyone for being part of the solution and caring about the park :)

Quick reminder:

The next Sheriff's meeting is November 18th-save the date and share with our POP officers that we need help!!

Homeless in the park

Hello neighbors,

We sincerely need your help with reporting recent use of Jan Park by homeless folks as a campground, and place to hang out. It's so important that we make sure our beautiful park is preserved for use by everyone who wants to enjoy it's natural beauty, support safety in the surrounding community, enjoy quality time, and promote lawful use of a public amenity. The current problems we are experiencing have multiple symptoms, but has led to dumping of garbage, narcotic use, alcohol abuse, and concern by many on their safe use of the park. Please report suspicious behavior of all sorts; using the water fountain for personal hygiene needs, idling and loitering of individuals who seem to be carrying large amounts of plastic bags with clothing, hanging out by individuals without children, pets, or other common reasons to be in a park environment, etc. contact the non-emergency number at 916-874-5115 for crimes not in progress and use 911 for immediate needs where you are witnessing a crime in progress ( drug deals definitely count!) I also strongly encourage you to use 311 to report violations like illegal dumping from homeless ( you can use the mobile app for added convenience), and Tip Submit.  The more we report, the more our sheriff's department will recognize our need for help. Contact Jerry Epler at Carmichael Recreation Park District to report camping, and dumping in the park as well at jeppler@carmichaelpark.com

Check in with us at Nextdoor.com and the Lincoln-Barrett Neighborhood Watch on Facebook to keep up with latest concerns, connect with your neighborhood watch street coordinator via email, and please help is be a strong, active presence in the park!!

Thank you all!!