A good politician

It's been an interesting couple of days around here. Monday and Tuesday the traffic count to renters house was over 50 and 60 per day/24 hours a day. As usual, we get nowhere with the dispatchers asking them to send a patrol car out. They want to refer us to the narcotics - which is just either an online reporting or leave a message on their phone drug tip line. We have done this regularly for 2 YEARS now. Nothing. Then they tell us if we want patrol we have to go over to the precinct and request it. When we do get a deputy out and talk with them, they all say "keep calling it in".....

So, Tuesday afternoon I went over to the precinct. I got the same front desk guy as last Jan or Feb when I went in for the same thing. He is pretty much worthless. Just sits there and nods at what I'm saying and give me no help. Tells me to report it to narcotics tip line. I said I do that constantly for 2 years now, apparently it goes into a black hole. Finally I kept pressing him for some sort of answer and he gave me a name and direct line to someone in the narcotics unit and advised the best day to call would be Thursday. Which, I did yesterday morning and had to leave a message and of course no return call. Then I pressed the issue of the dispatchers refusing to dispatch an deputy. I said "what do I do at 2am, when there is some strange person, usually with a backpack, walking up and down our private road and I don't feel safe that they are out there?!  He then said when speaking with the dispatchers to request to speak to a sergeant. I also said that we have not seen a deputy patrol our area for almost 2 months now.

In the meantime DH had decided to shoot another email to our county councilman's assistant. She was the one who set up the meeting a few months ago with the neighborhood watch organizer (who agreed that won't work in our situation). She is currently running for a county position. He wanted to let her know we voted for her and even though she (and her boss, the councilman) haven't heard from us recently, our drug problem is still as strong as ever.  He also gave landlord neighbor a courtesy call saying this is totally out of control the last 2 days. He must have talked to renters as that afternoon/early evening it really quieted down.....until around 1am when about 5 or 6 of the methheads were outside our gate just hanging out, making lots of noise and making gestures, as they know the cameras are there. A call to the non-emergency dispatch to request a deputy come out resulted is same as always, so DH requested a call back from a sergeant. When asked why, he said "because I do not feel safe for myself or my family and that is what the officer at the precinct told us to do". A minute later a regular deputy called back.

Yesterday morning, right after I left for work, DH sees this pick up driving slow down our street, stopping in front of our house, then stopped at the renters, came back slow, stopping again in front of our house. Then the phone rang. It was our district county commissioner.....outside on our street! He pulled in and talked with DH about the problem.  His first notice was all the illegal building code violations going on at renters and the landlords property directly on the other side of us. DH says, ya, we've tried that process but got nowhere, and he said, well, I sure can.  Then he said he was heading to a big county budget meeting (at the big new county facility near our house) and just wanted to see all this first.

Around noon DH gets a message from his assistant that the sheriff is also at this meeting and our neighborhood drug problem was brought up. Sheriff said they have added patrols now to our neighborhood.  Then around 3pm DH gets another call from the commissioner that he wanted to come back again and was bringing a code enforcement guy with him. They can see most of the problems from our property, without having to go onto the other properties. So, that is an angle that is being worked. He also said landlord will need a business license if he has rental houses.

It was a busy evening with drug traffic again last night, but it turns out one of the cars that drove by early evening was actually the commissioner out again! He was showing someone else the situation. DH is also sending him several of the pictures and videos from our security system showing all the traffic - one shows a drug deal done right in front of our good neighbors driveway.

I appreciate our councilman and the attention he is now giving our situation. Sadly, though, he also said our head sheriff is pretty worthless. Let's hope something gives and we finally get this resolved. These aren't just crappy neighbors - these are people breaking the law, day in/day out and getting away with it.