Dear City Council Members,

Recently the Willows Neighborhood has been hit with a rash of
burglaries, auto thefts and most recently an armed robbery (MP Almanac
dated 1/02/07). We are one of the residents in the Willows that had our
525i BMW stolen from our residence back on 12/07/06. We write this with
great concern with the state of our very charming neighborhood.

Many residents and neighbors in the Willows are concerned and want
answers to what is being done to prevent this type of crime in this
area. We and many others have contacted the Menlo Park Police Department
asking to help educate us, inform us and tell us how we can help. We and
others have not received any response, or if there has been a response,
there has been no follow through. (*See pasted email below.)

We are hoping you can provide us with details of when the MP police
department patrols this area and how often they are in this area. We
feel more presence in this neighborhood would begin to help taper the
crime. We have not seen increased activity as promised so we'd like your
help to put this commitment into action. Also we have offered to host a
meeting in our home and open it up to other residents, but again we have
not had the follow through from the MP police department to make this
happen.

We are trying to be proactive rather than reactive. It's hard to
understand when you have a neighborhood that is willing to help! When
our car was stolen it was recovered in Stockton with $9000 in damage and
the MP Officer stated that "crack" was being done in the car. Please
refer to the pasted email below regarding the fact that 22 cars were
stolen in MP since 12/01/06**. To us, it seems that eventually someone
will end up a victim unless action is taken soon. Someone will be in the
wrong place at the wrong time or some innocent victim on our freeways
will be hit by someone high on drugs in a MP stolen vehicle. This will
be a real tragedy. We are hoping you read this with a sense of urgency
and begin to see this as a top issue of concern for our city.

We look forward to your response about how often the police are
patrolling our neighborhood and what times. And we also look forward to
finding ways that the police department can pro-actively spend time with
Willow residents to provide helpful tips to residents so our
neighborhoods can become safe and crime free.

Sincerely,

Craig & Sue Olson
308 Concord Drive
650-329-8191

* The following is an email response that our neighbor received on
12/07/06 from the MP Police Department. To date there has been no follow
through.

Hi Ms. Hom,
 
I have referred your email to Officer Mary Ferguson who will be
contacting you within a
week to talk about setting up a neighborhood meeting to discuss the
community's concerns
of burglaries in the Willows.
 
I will follow-up with you to see if Officer Ferguson was able to contact
you and to
organize a meeting with the residents. Please let me know if you have
any further
concerns or questions.
 
Sincerely,
 
Nicole Acker
(650) 330-6325

** The following is a news posting that was on the
WillowNeighborhoodWatch Yahoo group.

Theft rates have neighbors fed up
Police advise taking extra precautions over the holidays
By Kelly Pakula, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area
12/24/2006

MENLO PARK - The quiet, tree-lined Willows neighborhood has been hit
hard lately by
auto and residential thieves who have broken into dozens of cars and
homes.
It's become such a concern that City Council members have held meetings
to educate
residents about the dangers, and police have stepped up patrols.

According to Menlo Park police Sgt. Jim Simpson, between Dec. 1 and
Tuesday, there were
22 different cases of auto burglary in the city, many of them occurring
in the Willows
neighborhood, nestled between Willow Road, state Highway 101,
Middlefield Road and San
Francisquito Creek.)

 
Received on Tue Jan 9 08:08:30 2007