The first meeting will be this Thursday, January 16, 2003 at 6:00 PM at the Forrest Whitman Boardroom at C.A. Dean Hospital (the boardroom is located in the modular building). The purpose of the first meeting will be to receive the charge to the committee by the Board of Selectmen, to lay out a schedule of meetings and of work, and to consider committee structure, e.g., a chair for the committee. This committee is advisory in nature: the Board of Selectmen would like to have a series of recommendations from the committee by the Selectmen's second regular meeting in March of 2003. Time is short: Police Chief Duane Alexander and I will assist the committee in any way we can to explore and devise strategies for limiting vandalism and late-night juvenile presence in our community. The official charge to the committee is listed below:

“To consider ways in which the Town of Greenville could curb the incidence of vandalism and the presence of juveniles in conspicuous public places late at night, and to make a series of recommendations to the Board of Selectmen.”

2 Greenville High School Students,
2 parents of students in the Greenville schools
2 Greenville School System teachers
2 business owners or their representative
3 members-at-large

All but two of these positions – one student and one at-large member – have been named by the Board of Selectmen at their January 7, 2003 meeting. The attached roster indicates who has been named to the committee.

It is important to note that ALL of these meetings will be open to the public. The Board and I urge the members of the committee to welcome non-committee members into your discussion as much as is feasible. Not everyone can be named to the committee, and a certain structure was designed so as to ensure weighted participation by certain sectors. The recommendations to be presented to the Board of Selectmen will be ultimately designed and approved by the members of this committee.

As a possible starting point, I offer some background information. I will ask Police Chief Duane Alexander to provide for the committee the number of vandalism complaints occurring in each of the past three years, broken down by month. Without giving out confidential information, we will try to isolate details about the type of damage done, cost of the damage, and resolution of the complaint. It will take some time to secure this information, but we will compile it. Also, I will ask the Police Chief to share his final report regarding our foot patrol in 2002. A log was kept on the amount of time spent on this downtown foot beat: it was not always accomplished due to being called away to other incidents. This, too, may give you some perspective as to efforts the Town has tried, and to what effect. One of the purposes of the foot patrol was to enforce the Recreational Facilities Ordinance, a copy of which is attached. If there is any other information the committee would like, please speak up and tell Duane or I.

I have drafted an agenda for the first meeting, which I will chair for the time-being. This is, however, your committee: I urge the group to find its own chairperson and to set your own meeting schedule.

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday night! Also, my apologies for getting this notice out so late – there are too many other things in the pipeline to have gotten it out much sooner.

Sincerely;

John Simko
Town Manager