Love thy neighbor, as thyself…in Baytown?

The good citizens of this old oil town, long known for their independent and self-reliant spirit are beginning to make a change in how they watch out for each other. I’m not implying that Baytonians aren’t caring people; we just like to go our own way. In a pinch, we have always relied on each other.

Baytown is my town of choice and that’s why folks call me Baytown Bert. In fact, some of my Hispanic friends shorten my moniker and simply call me Baytown.

Yesterday, I spent an hour walking part of my 500 home subdivision encouraging my neighbors to band together against criminal activity when it rears its ugly head. Our plan is to use the Neighborhood Watch system of calling police when suspicious activity appears, even if it isn’t our own house. Today and tomorrow, others will be attempting to blanket this neighborhood with flyer's. Soon we will install 30 new Neighborhood Watch signs we paid for with our neighborhood civic group monies.

Every neighborhood and apartment complex in this area needs to focus on getting a group together.

Some call it nosy neighbors, but let me say this, many of us are dual income residents and some work more than one job, so our house and driveway is vacant a good portion of the day or night – since we have many shift workers. We need all the help we can get to keep prowlers away, so nosy neighbors are welcome here.

I live in Chaparral Village, a 30+ year old section of our fine town and it is still a pretty good place to raise a family, or sit in your backyard and BBQ and watch the birds. I’m not ready to give up my half acre quite yet and I’m surely not ready to have it taken from me by someone who would rather steal, than get a job and actually work for their money.

I am basically a minimalist type person, who doesn’t run out and compulsively purchase stuff I don’t need and there is nothing wrong with folks who do – this is America after all, but the stuff I do buy – I want and I really resent having that stuff taken without my permission.

About 20 years ago, I bought my wife a high dollar Hunter Cruiser Classic beach cruiser bicycle from Delgado’s bike shop here in Baytown. I bought it to match mine, which still performs like a new one and I’ve ridden it thousands of miles. I paid over $200 for this fine bicycle, so my lady could ride with me through our neighborhood.

Gone…stolen…wasted. I can’t replace it and even though $200 is not a lot of money (it was 20 years ago), it burns me up still. Personally, I would like to get my hands on the throat of the person who stole it, but I would settle for letting the police lock them up, even if it was for one day…I just want the bike back and want it the way it was when it was stolen. The company is no longer in business, so I can’t replace it.

It’s no secret that the “Fab 4” of Baytown Concerned Citizens (BCC) are trying to enlist as many citizens, police and city workers as we can to stem and eliminate crime from Baytown, but believe it or not, many haven’t heard about our web site www.hotpursuit.com or the BCC group.

Our web site is not the end-all or the total answer. It’s a wonderful tool to educate the average citizen and a place where the average citizen can personally ask a cop a question. It’s an unprecedented resource which empowers us against crime on a local level and everyone should register and contribute. Everyone who hates crime.

What it is going to take is group involvement; groups of people in neighborhoods organizing to fight crime. Blue collar, white collar, predominantly white, black, brown or yellow areas of town can become equally active in fighting crime and that my friend is unheard of in this country.

There is no reason to not get involved. Only criminal activity and criminals specifically will be targeted. Get on board folks. This includes my friend in Highlands - Granny Adcox.

As one of the spokesman for BCC, I’ve asked our new city manager Garry Brumback, Mayor Stephen Don Carlos and chief of police Byron Jones to step up traffic enforcement. I did this openly in front of 250 Baytown citizens. It’s another step in reducing crime and it may not be popular with the average citizen.

“If you want to catch a crook, you catch them breaking the traffic laws”. That quote comes straight from me and it’s based on watching the crime report for the last 5 years. Fellow Baytonians, buckle up, don’t drink and drive, come to a complete stop before turning on red and have your insurance card up to date, because BPD is going after the crooks.