April 15 Meeting Update by Angelique Ashby

The April meeting went very well earlier this week and Creekside has lots to look forward to (and many fun opportunities to get involved).

We talked about our upcoming Creek Week clean up event - happening on Sunday April 26th at 1pm. We will be meeting at Sean and Casey's house (2921 North Platte).

Sean has spoken with the Creek Week folks and he has bags and tools. I am bringing plastic gloves and Lewis Communities is providing water and cookies. We also invited the church that meets at Hight and the PTA of Hight as well. This event is open to everyone.

We will have some more wildflower/poppy seeds to be spread as we go too (this was fun last year and we have lots of colorful flowers now)...

Next month's meeting (May) will be canceled because we plan to walk to the community and invite new neighbors to join us.

The goal is to have as many Creekside neighbors as possible on the Yahoo Group and at the same time to invite more families to get involved in our growing and expanding neighborhood efforts.

In the next few weeks we will need to talk about walking teams and materials to take with us as we go door to door to invite new members.

We also discussed our upcoming 4th of July celebration. We talked about expanding it to start a little earlier in the afternoon with a bike parade for the kids and maybe some games, like water balloon toss or three legged races, etc...

It would be best to have a small committee that addresses the details of this fun event - as a post meeting task I contacted the folks who live on the Ct. or who have helped in the past. Maricel & John will spearhead the day's events and I will help.

We are looking for a couple more neighbors to help us plan!

Lastly, we talked about crime and safety issues, Officer Wetterer was in attendance and educated us on some safety concerns. Probably the most important ones were not to leave valuables (including garage door openers) in your cars outside of the garage overnight. While car thefts and break ins are down in the City - they are up in Natomas.

Also, if a stranger knocks on your door - do not ignore it. YOU DO NOT have to open the door - but you NEED to say something to let them know you are home. It can be "We aren't available right now" or "We aren't answering the door right now". But it is important not to just ignore them because many home invasions have started with an unanswered knock on the door and when the suspect believes you are not home he jumps the fence and breaks in through the back.

This does not mean every stranger is a home invader but it does mean that you need to let every stranger know you are home when they knock on the door.

Keep an eye out for your neighbors - if you see someone going over a fence or around the back of a neighbors home call the police.

And lastly we all need to keep our eyes open for suspicious activity in the park and around our homes. It was a rough week for Creekside with crime. If you see crimes in progress call 911. If you see suspicious activity call the police non-emergency number 264-5471.

Always get the license plate numbers of suspicious cars and never hesitate to call if you feel you should.

Thanks to everyone who attended this month's meeting... Hope to see you all at the Creek Week clean up event on the 26th!

Angelique Ashby, JD

President

Creekside Neighborhood Association

www.creeksideneighbors.blogspot.com