Progress because of community effort!

Because of the hard work of people like Sylvia Baylor, Wyshina Harris, Sheila Oliver, Dana Arnick, June Mason, Mayella Lopez, Monique Dawson, Lori Cullom, Linda Haynes, and several others the 10:15 p.m. bus is back!!!! (Click on the dates underneath each picture to see video "then" and video "now") If you look at the first picture (below), you can also see that back then there also weren't any street lights...but there are now...thanks to those same people!

At this point, the 10:15 p.m. bus is not permanent. They are testing it out to see if it is safe for the bus drivers. Please help us keep the bus there! If anyone you know does something to hurt a bus or bus driver, please immediately call 9-1-1. If you see kids messing up the new swings, please stop them! If you see people shooting out the street lights, please call 9-1-1. Let's work together to keep our community safe, well-lit, and full of opportunities for the children and ourselves.


Turner Courts, December 7, 2007


Turner Courts, May 9, 2008

Let there be light!!

For the last few months, some of us here in Rochester Park have been meeting with City officials to communicate some of our frustrations (one of them being that the majority of our street lights are out!). Side note: WE INVITE AND ENCOURAGE MORE PEOPLE TO ATTEND and express your concerns as well!!!...we need all voices!

At the Thursday night Bexar St. corridor meeting at the Boys & Girls Club, many residents voiced concerns about the way things are now. The city heard your concerns! I received this email yesterday from Mr. Brad Moss, city of Dallas...

A night time survey of Bexar and Municipal streets was preformed at 6 am Friday the 8th and a list of the lights not working was sent to Oncor for repair. The lights should be repaired within 5 working days.

This is great news!

If you live in the Rochester Park neighborhood, please check out the lights. If you find that some are still not working by Wednesday, February 13, please call ONCOR or DHA (depending on where the lights are)...and let us at the After-School Academy know as well.

For STREET LIGHT concerns...
If you live on DHA property, CALL IN A WORK ORDER...THEN GO TELL MS. ARNETT in the office. All street lights in Turner Courts are now the responsibility of DHA. If they do not get fixed after you have done this, please come see us in the Community Room...6601 Bexar St.

If you live in the Rochester Park area, but not on DHA property, CALL 3-1-1 and CALL ONCOR at 1.888.313.4747.

I want to commend Dwaine Caraway, Mayor Pro Tem, for continuing to show up...and bringing out numerous city officials...to help us address our concerns.

I also want to commend Kassem Elkhalil from Public Works for working so hard to make things happen...especially getting the street lights turned back on. Without any prompting, he makes sure to email and tell me what's going on.

We are happy with the progress, but we still have a lot of work to do! The lights are just the beginning!

Please come out to help us plan the agenda for our next Town Hall meeting.

Our planning meeting will be in the Community Room at 6601 Bexar St. on February 20, 2008 from 12:00-1:30.

The Town Hall meeting with the city will be Saturday, March 1, 2008 from 10:00-11:30.

Please come to either or both!! Call Sylvia (214-928-9833) or Janet (214-498-6097) with any questions.

Town Hall meeting #2!

Everyone come out! We are having our 2nd Town Hall meeting for the Rochester Park community.

I am so encouraged by the participation of the people who have come to the table so far. They have done a great job hanging in there and following up with the information we received. We definitely need everyone to participate in order to make our community better.

Please come out...

THIS SATURDAY
February 2, 2008
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

We will have progress reports presented by different people in the community and some new representatives from the city to help us address issues.

Please be on time! We want the city to know we are taking this seriously!

I look forward to seeing you!

Council meeting

Hey everybody, i just wanted to enlighten everyone who wasn't at the meeting about the meeting that was held today. The meeting was a huge success and i feel that we accomplished alot and i felt that we brought alot of the important issues to the table. We even had residents come out which i had already expected (lol Janet). The important thing is that people showed up. I am really glad i came.

~Steven (Checo) Roberts

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.

Addressing community issues

I mentioned in a previous post (Dark Streets and No Transportation) that I was interested in getting a bunch of you together to find out what issues are important to you so all of us can talk and figure out the best solutions to those issues...and figure out how to get the city involved, if needed.

Well, the time has come! :)

We will be meeting:
Tuesday, December 4
10:00 a.m.
Educational Outreach Center
(6601 Bexar St)

This meeting will be in preparation for our meeting with our city council person, Dwaine Carroway, on December 18.

Please join us Tuesday! We need to hear from you!

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.