Longview Hills @ Newport Oregon

MORE ON THE NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH COMMUNICATIONS PROBLEM FROM LARRY HENSON

via email....

Hi Ron,

Thank you for your work with Neighborhood Watch.

I had the opportunity to read your note on the community center door today and found it worthwhile.

In reference to comments on the memo, there is often a wide gap between what people hear and what is actually said.

Comments I have made about the incident speak more to the issue of how this event gives reason for continual training and attendance of residents to the Neighborhood Watch Program. Continual training of residents will eventually get things right by knowing how to respond, automatically. This incident shows there is still some way to go before, Neighborhood Watch has everything right, but is taking giant steps in the right direction.

To me the event describes how, given the right circumstances even the best of plans can fail.

I placed a call on 6.16 several times and did not receive a response. There were a group of folks in the community center at the time, so I asked them isn't the frequency now 6.16? After having it confirmed some in the group tried to get someone to answer on 6.16 for several minutes and never received a response. My radio was working so something happened, exactly what is unknown.

My firm belief is that whenever a resident sees anything out of the ordinary the first response they should perform is to dial 911. The 911 operator will ask the nature of the call and route it accordingly. If you have not done so, you may want to contact Rich Glasgow, director of LinCom to provide a training on how 911 works,

for some reason, universally, people are afraid to dial 911, (except for when the power is out) this mindset has to be changed for the system to work right.

Somewhere along the line at a training I picked up this bit of information, "If your fighting a fire and at some point you think, I better call 911, you have probably waited to long, however at that point, do not hesitate, dial 911 immediately".

Perhaps my training as a public school teacher could provide some benefit here. It seems we humans tend to learn best when we do a thing as we say a thing. Perhaps a training could be as simple as providing a key pad and having individuals push 911, then declare, "I believe I have an emergency, I need help", or some such similar exercise. I know it sounds simplistic but often times people just do not want to admit they need help, call it the independant American Spirit or whatever.

May you continue in faith, the Neighborhood Watch Group is doing a fantastic job and working toward a worthy goal, the group is steadily growing to perfection and improving every day, I appreciate everyones effort and yes you are making a difference, together we will take a bite out of crime.

larry henson, CM/LA-LVHMHC