LANGLEY AFB, VA. –
After three hours of heated discussion at last month's Bethel Manor townhall meeting regarding issues in the housing area, such as housing maintenance, vandalism and ownership, base leadership has a solution, well, two solutions.
In a residents' council meeting Tuesday evening, guests were asked to be part of the Bethel Manor Mayor's Council and/or the Neighborhood Watch.
"We wanted to get more information flowing between residents and those providing to them the services ... instead of having them rely on rumor mills," said Col. Brian Yolitz, 1st Mission Support Group commander. "Residents will work with local police and security forces as extra eyes and ears for the area."
The Langley Housing Office will oversee the Mayor's Council, and the 1st Security Forces Squadron will be training neighborhood watch members.
The Mayor's Council is a joint program with security forces to address quality-of-life issues within the housing areas, said Dick Moynihan, 1st Civil Engineer Squadron Housing Flight chief.
"This program is supposed to be results oriented - not burdensome for those involved," Mr. Moynihan said. "The hope is to reduce teenage vandalism, enforce housing standards and have a voice for the residents."
The housing office would like to have 14 adults involved on the council to fill each position: mayor, vice mayor, council and neighborhood captains (three to five residents for each of the seven housing sections). Each volunteer is asked to serve a minimum of 12 months.
The mayor and vice mayor will serve as the liaisons for the community with the housing office and senior leadership. The mayor's council will provide a forum to raise quality of life issues and discuss concerns with security forces management on a monthly basis. Finally, the neighborhood captains will inspect their housing sections and provide concerns to the housing staff, distribute informational material to residents and solicit resident input.
The neighborhood watch program falls more on the side of creating "resident police."
The security forces squadron will train interested residents to recognize crime, implement crime prevention techniques and enhance security in the housing communities, said Rob Fowler, 1st SFS crime prevention manager.
Residents can expect to be trained in what to look for, how to identify crime, conducting and knowing when to conduct foot and bike patrols, surveying homes for potential crime areas, practicing preventative measures and how to inform others of hazardous areas.
Mr. Fowler said security forces has designed the training to be "flexible and what is most convenient for the residents." Like the Mayor's Council, the neighborhood watch will also have a chain of command: coordinator, block captains and members; all neighborhood watch members will work hand-in-hand with residing security forces patrols.
"We're looking to run each of these programs in a crawl-walk-run fashion," Colonel Yolitz said. "We've have gathered information from different branches of services that have implemented the programs and have formulated what you have heard tonight."
To volunteer for the Mayor's Council, call Mr. Moynihan at 764-5040; to volunteer for the neighborhood watch, call Mr. Fowler at 764-5479.