For 12 years now, we’ve lived a quiet life in our neighborhood. That was until gang violence and activity started occurring back in April. There were several evenings when gunfire would occur and during the day, the gangs would take over the streets playing basketball in the middle of the road, intimidating the elderly women when they were trying to get home, not moving out of the streets for drivers, etc. Everything came to a head on Memorial Day weekend and more than 50 shots were fired between several gang members. There were several people who called the cops. When the cops came out, they seemed indifferent about the situation until they saw all the shell casings. Cars were hit, houses were hit, outdoor sheds were hit, but thankfully no person was injured. I decided that was enough. We had to come together as a neighborhood and do something about the recent outbreaks in violence.

I started going door to door and asking the neighbors how they felt about the recent activity. Some were didn’t seem bothered and others were very scared. I decided to get try and have a neighborhood meeting. I made a flier for it, Chris decided to make hotdogs for those who showed up, and we had our first meeting in June. Since the police are overwhelmed, we decided to try to take matters into our own hands. We found out who owned the property of the home where the violence kept erupting and spoke to the landlord about the recent events. He evicted them by the end of June. Mostly, the neighborhood has been quiet since and we have talked to the landlords of the other vacant properties in our area to let them know that we care about the people who move in here and we want to keep our neighborhood safe.

Another issue that was brought to my attention at the meeting was the fact that the alley way in between our two subdivisions was completely overgrown. The neighbors stated that they had individually called the city numerous times in the last three years without any action being taken. The city claimed they didn’t know who owned the property. We decided that we were going to take matters into our own hands, once again, and clean up the alley way ourselves on the second weekend in September. We did just that this weekend! There were at least 20 neighbors and others in the city who came to help out this weekend and get the alley way under control. It looks fantastic!! It’s amazing what people can do when they work towards a solution to their problems, together.

Special thanks to all who came out and put their boots on the ground to help out this little niche in Kansas City!!

If you would like to join LRP in disseminating this information throughout Kansas City tomorrow (September 3, 2010), be at The Brick (1727 McGee) at 6:30pm.  Join the anti-fluoride crusade!!!