Looking forward to 2010

This year has been a pretty wonderful year in the Near Northwest Management District. We began implementation of the Weed and Seed Grant, worked to further reduce crime, added more communications with the community, began building a business network, held two job fairs, hosted one of the city's largest National Night Out Celebrations, launched a new web site and completed a petition drive to continue our existence for another 15 years, just to cover the highlights.

With all that, 2010 is looking even better! Many community members and business owners have come forward and expressed a desire to work with the District to help make this an even better place to live and do business.

The Weed & Seed Grant is entering its second year and has a long list of activities to further the goals of the grant -- neighborhood restoration, community policing, law enforcement and prevention, intervention and treatment.

The Grant will be adding an additional Safe Haven, that brings our total to four, so that area children can have safe places to go after school. In addition to our community Job Fair, we will be adding a Re-entry Job Fair to help ex-offenders start their lives over and stay on the right track.

Weed and Seed Program Director Carla McGowen is hard at work creating programs to continue the grants efforts to seed in positive influences into the community. She and new Board Member Heidi Sheesley are passionate about working with Urban Harvest to start several community gardens in the area. This will not only improve the appearance of the area but teach valuable skills and help feed those who work in the garden.

A number of youth programs will be beginning during the first half of the year including a Teen cooking class with Chef Raphael Galindo to teach youth skills that will lead not only to a job but a career, a Girl Scout Troop, a youth fitness program taught by martial arts experts and a youth leadership class to teach teens how to be leaders and provide them with skills that will lead to success for a lifetime.

The District is working to put together a business network so that area business owners and managers can come together to improve the community and work together to build a thriving business environment. We will be hosting our first networking breakfasts later in the year. Contact Stanley Prince at 713-895-8021 for more information.

We are also in the planning stages of introducing a circulator bus service into the area for a trial period of 60 days. The goal is to help residents who don't have transportation to shop, work and recreate in our area.

We continue to work with Precinct 1 Constables to reduce crime in the area. They are patrolling the area and will conduct several anti-crime initiatives to get criminals off our streets and out of our neighborhoods. We are also continuing to recruit community members to participate in keeping our communities safe. We are offering security updates through Nixle, go to www.nixle .com to sign up to receive these updates. Also community members are encouraged to go to www.crime-track.com to report suspicious or potential criminal activity to help our Constables stop crime before in happens.

There is still more going on. This is going to be an amazing year. Please work with us! The District is always looking for the input from the community and would love to see you at one of our Board Meetings, held on the third Tuesday of each month at 5300 Hollister at 6:30 p.m.