A number of Ocean Beach and Point Loma community groups are hosting a town hall meeting focused on the recent string of arson and vandalism that has happened in the area, Tuesday, January 16th.
The groups include the OB Town Council, the OB Planning Board, OB Community Development Corp., OB Community Foundation, OB Main St. Association, OB Historical Society, Point Loma Association, and OB Clean Streets Initiative.
The town hall will be held at the Masonic Center at 1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd, from 6 PM – 8 PM.
According to the event’s facebook:
San Diego Police Department will be there to give the community an update. Along with SD Police Department, National Public Safety and members of the community will be there to discuss steps one can take to protect your property. We also ask the community to come with their own ideas so we can all come up with a solution to prevent the recent arsons. We look forward to seeing you there.
Marcus Turner, the Vice President of the Ocean Beach Board of Directors, told the media that since the beginning of December, there have been at least 40 cases of vandalism and eight vehicles that have been set on fire.
According the Fox5 report, some see this as an opportunity to push installing more lights and security cameras.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Please consider holding the meetings at 7 so those of us who work full days can attend.
There’s a degree (albeit unintentional) of selection bias when you hold meetings early which tends to overrepresent retirees, the disabled and the homeless who have more time on their hands.
One of my pet-peeves. Usually the Town Council begins their meetings at 7pm, but not all groups do.
The meeting was well represented by a variety of demographics and many voices were heard. I found it interesting how many concerned citizens came to share their voice but very few came to the table with solutions. The need for unity is apparent, and this was made clear tonite, in addition to the need for communication and readily available authorities to assist and do more to keep our streets safe. Althouvh the meeting was surrounding the unsolved vandalism and Arden crimes, the persisting issue of homelessness and unsafe neighborhoods plagues the community. We need to form neighborhood watch teams and get more involved as a collective group to solve these very real issues. Ome town hall meeting isnt goung to solve all our problems but its a good start.
The numbers of arson and vandalism quoted in the post from Fox5 news are out of sync. There were 8 incidents of arson – including 1 car – and 40 of vandalism – mainly the slashing of tires.