By The Editor
Frank Young Park, at the corner of Udell and Radar St. in the NW Civic neighborhood, became the most recent designation for Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett to conduct a Neighborhood Safety Walk. On the walk, the Mayor was joined by Commander Lewis of IMPD and fellow officers. City Council President, Vop Osili, neighborhood Residents, and the Press also joined in. Walking along the streets, engaging with residents to improve the relations with the community, and to ensure that the City's plan to help curb crime was going well; was the goal of the Mayor.
During the walk, Major arrests in the area were acknowledged by City Officials. and verbal commitments to keep pushing towards safer neighborhoods were made. My main focus was to get as many residents to attend so that they could speak directly with our Mayor in hopes that he would get a more real feel of what these residents go through and what they hope will come from the City. And speak they did!
Before the walk even started after the press conference, the Residents not only welcomed him to the neighborhood but spoke about their experience with crime. We made sure to go over the fact that if we still have decreased economic opportunities in our community, then what is to keep another criminal from running amok on our streets. We spoke about deplorable city properties next door to resident homes that lower their values and also are safety risks to those homes; How some insurance companies have chosen to deem our homes uninsurable on many occasions because of those safety risks. And finally, how the combination of both abandoned homes and unkempt properties LEAD to increases in crime.
Both the Mayor and our Councilman received a direct raw update about what is happening on our streets. I was so happy to be able to be a part of that.
Thank you to our Mayor, Councilman, IMPD, more importantly, the Near Northwest Residents for your honesty, courage, and candid conversations.