After some broken promises, DART comes through

I got a phone call from my friend, Mike Davis, this evening.

"Can you get some people together? DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) is reinstating their route through Turner Courts."

I immediately called Lori and Evette, who were at our Saturday Town Hall meeting with DART and had done their best to explain why bus service was needed through the apartments after 8:00. DART had promised that service would be reinstated by March 15, but didn't follow through on their promise. Their representative talked about statistics and dangerous conditions. Evette, Sheila, Lori, and Sylvia tried to help them understand the situation of people who get off work late and don't want to walk through a dark field at 10:00 at night; they told of people who take jobs based on bus service; Ms. Dana Arnette, with the Dallas Housing Authority, commented that she sometimes struggles to lease apartments because transportation is a concern for incoming residents.

Lori, Evette, Dana, Mike, and I met at Turner Courts at 10:00 this evening to anxiously await the bus's 10:15 arrival. A little after 10:15, we saw an older lady come out of the shadows from the end of Bexar Street, shuffling her feet, running as fast as she could. "The bus must be coming," someone observed. Sure enough, you could see it in the distance getting closer to the JBC corner store, which has been the last pick up/drop off point (after 8:00 p.m.) for the last several years.

Mike told the lady not to worry and assured her the bus would wait for her.

She kept shuffling as fast as she could, trying to get to the store.

We told her she could slow down because the bus was going to stop right here.

She kept shuffling and explained, "No, the bus doesn't stop here! It stops at the store up there."

We all began trying to convince her, "No, it's changed. The bus will stop here from now on."

She stopped running, but tried to explain to us, "See the sign. It says right there...No service after 8:00." (I wish I'd have taken a picture of the DART sign from the other side so you could see it).

We assured her tonight that was changing and the bus would now run through Turner Courts after 8:00 on a regular basis.

You should've seen her face. Though my pictures didn't turn out very well in the dark, she was somewhat older, had dress shoes on, and was coming from the church, I believe. The look on her face and her comments were absolutely priceless. "Really?? It's going to stop here from now on?? Oh, thank you Jesus!!" She seemed so relieved, surprised, skeptical, but thrilled. Her excitement nearly brought tears to my eyes.


As the bus pulled up and stopped, Dwaine Caraway, our city council person, stepped off along with about 3 Turner Courts residents who were coming home for the evening. One young adult getting off of the bus was just as shocked as the older lady. "I never thought I'd see the day that these buses actually go through the apartments at night."

Though we planned our little gathering of meeting the bus and witnessing the outcome of the community's efforts to speak out, we couldn't have planned the older lady running for the bus and expressing such relief and genuine appreciation.

Customer service. Valuing the community. It's important.

Sometimes it's important to go the extra mile...or in this case the extra block...to demonstrate commitment, show value, and let everyone in and outside of the community know we're all in this together and we're going to do what it takes to make this community safer and more appealing for the neighbors who currently live there, the children, store owners, bus drivers, and visitors. By working together as a community, inclusive of pro-active city services, we can make this a more pleasant place to live now and a more pleasant area that will attract other businesses and services in the future.

Town Hall Meeting...THIS SATURDAY!! (1/5/08)

The Town Hall meeting will be this Saturday, in the Educational Outreach Center (Community Room/Rent office) at 6601 Bexar St. Below is an agenda based on what several people in Turner Courts have noticed and are concerned about. The meeting will start at 10:00 a.m. and should be over by 11:30.

We plan to present the issues as a community, let the city respond to how they can/will address those issues, we will ask any questions of the city, and, finally, the city will present next steps for them and let us know how we can work with them to make sure those things are accomplished.

I. Welcome and introductions
II. Why are we here?
III. Presentation of the issues Rochester Park community
a. Crime (Monique and Wyshina Harris)
i. Police patrol
1. How often can we expect police to be patrolling? Should they patrol or park?
2. What is the expected response time?
3. How do reported statistics (i.e. calling in for shots, robberies, vandalism, etc.) contribute to more police presence?
4. Homeless men sleeping on playgrounds in the mornings (in Turner Courts)
5. Open drug deals around the play grounds (in Turner Courts)
ii. Lighting
1. Present list of street lights that are out or dim
b. Transportation (Lori Cullom)
i. DART
1. Doesn’t run through Turner Courts after 7:51
a. People have late jobs
b. Bus stops are provided so we would like to utilize them
2. What can we do to help and make sure buses continue to run?
3. Hours residents need bus service
ii. Street signs
1. No directional signs/highway signs telling how to get to 45, 175, etc.
c. Code enforcement (Sylvia Baylor)
i. Cracked sidewalks
d. Housing (Sylvia Baylor)
i. DHA
1. Playgrounds
a. Broken glass in playground areas
b. Lack of wood chips for children’s safety
c. Homeless men sleeping in playgrounds
d. Open drug deals
2. Apartments
a. Slow or limited maintenance
e. City Park—Rochester (Monique)
i. Lots of bugs (needs to be exterminated)
ii. Wires sticking out on playground equipment
f. Economic development
i. Lack of businesses (i.e. grocery stores)
g. Schools (Wyshina Harris)
h. Communication (Dana Arnick)
i. Will phone booths be taken out of the neighborhood or will pay phones still be available for those without cell phones?
IV. City addresses the issues presented
V. Next steps
a. City
b. Community

The community is coming together!

After our initial meeting with City Council person, Dwaine Caraway, I have heard great things about how people have been stepping up and coming together in order to present an accurate picture about city services that we pay for, but that haven't been addressed in our Turner Courts/Rochester Park neighborhood.

As I was browsing the internet and preparing for our Town Hall Meeting on January 5, I found this link: http://www.dallascityhall.com/services/streets.html.

I thought this link would be helpful as we move forward and become more efficient at reporting city services that need to be addressed. If you have any problems with the online system, I'm sure Sylvia, in the Educational Outreach Center at Turner Courts, would be happy to help you report any issues.

PLEASE JOIN US AT THE NEXT
Town Hall Meeting!!
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Date: Saturday, January 5, 2008
Place: After-School Academy/Community Room

What will be addressed???
The community of Turner Courts has created an agenda of issues including police patrolling, playground safety, street lighting, adequate sidewalks, transportation (DART), and much more.

Who will be there???
Dwaine Caraway (our City Council person) along with representatives from the police, code compliance, public works, and other city offices.

Why do we need you there???
Dwaine Caraway is bringing everyone to the table so that we can point out the issues we face in Rochester Park. We want as many from the community as possible so that the city will see that, just like other neighborhoods, we are concerned about ours and our family's safety and well-being. We want to be a collective voice that is willing to work with the city, but also expects the city to work with us.

Please invite your friends and neighbors and come join us! We are all learning. As we learn what the city is responsible for and what we can do, we plan to build a stronger relationship with our city council and get better at holding the city accountable to things that we pay for with our tax dollars.

Making changes

Thank you to Wyshina, Ms. Haynes, Monique, Sylvia, Bernard, Lori, and Dana coming out to the meeting with Dwaine Caraway today! I hope everyone felt like they got to voice their concerns...and I hope you were satisfied with the response. (I hate that I forgot to take pictures!!)

Though Dwaine said he was going to get right on those issues, we need to make sure we get our part done so the city is unable to make excuses for the repairs they are responsible for. We want the city to see that we want our neighborhood to be better and we are willing to do our part to make it happen as long as we have their support…even if we’ve tried before (as I know many of you have made calls before).

We have tentatively planned a
Town Hall meeting
January 5, 2008
10:00 a.m.
Location: After-School Academy

Please write this down and plan on attending!

Before that meeting, there are several things we need to accomplish…
1) Writing down the specific address of EVERY street light that is out—Who wants to be responsible for that?
2) Ms. Haynes calling about the DHA change in paying rent
3) Getting the word out about the Jan. 5 meeting—inviting friends, neighbors, etc. We want to begin showing the city that we will show up…but we also can’t get discouraged when people don’t. We just need to persevere. People will start coming out when they see that things are actually happening.
4) Visit the churches across the street and find out what community efforts they have…and just get to know them in general…begin building a relationship with them (maybe invite them to visit the ASA or the EOC)—Who wants to be responsible for that?
5) Begin our own meetings/conversations.

We need a Resident Council here at Turner Courts. But, we don't have enough people to make it work--President, Vice President, Treasurer, Chaplain, Sergeant at Arms, and 2 alternates. I suggest that we just start having lunch/community conversations and begin talking about the issues and working on them. As we attract more people and create leadership within our own group, we can advocate for a resident council.

Wyshina had a great idea I think would be great for us to start working on…I am going to look into getting us all trained and deputized to be people who can register voters. If we can do that, we will probably do it during our ASA staff development meeting (anyone can attend though). I’ll let you know when we get the person to train us.

I want to hear your comments about the meeting. Make comments below. (Ask Sylvia if you need help doing this)

Thanks again for coming today! I look forward to the possibilities!!

Dark streets and no transportation

Have you noticed how dark it is as you drive down Bexar Street by Turner Courts? I didn't really notice it before, but now that we've had Daylight Savings time, it seems much more apparent. Probably because it's dark when the kids leave the After-School Academy...and it's darkest right there.

As I drove down Bexar, I noticed the street lights right along Bexar and the one on the corner of Bexar and Parsons are both really dim. I wonder how many more are like that. If anyone else is interested in doing anything about that, let me know. Maybe if we get several people together, we can get Dwaine Carroway, our city council member, down here and we can talk to him about it.

The other thing that bothered me is when I found out the DART buses don't run down there after dark anymore. That is something like 6:00! What about people going to or getting off of work?? That's not right. I heard it's because people have been throwing bricks or eggs and such at the buses (maybe some of that would decrease if our street lights worked). If that's true and people are doing that, I wouldn't want to drive in that either. BUT...we don't need to just accept it! We need to do something! What can we do? Could we form some sort of watch group and communication with the police for kids/people who do that? Can we talk to DART? Maybe this is another issue for Dwaine Carroway. After all...he is OUR city representative!

We can't expect him to do it all by himself. We have to work together. But at least we could start the conversation. Who is interested?? Let me know or let Sylvia know and she can get in contact with me.