Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Theft Alert - ATM Debit Card Fraud

From the North Primrose Alliance blog. Several of their neighbors have been hit. Be alert. Monitor your accounts and report any suspicious activity.

THEFT II!
Neighbors:
We put this in an email the other day, but based on a conversation with MPD want to reiterate: If you think you might have had an unauthorized withdrawl with your ATM card, please contact the police immediately.

Apparrently there is a ring of thieves who have used technology-based methods to steal credit card and PIN data. They have been hitting customers who use the Pavillions ATM.


As you may know, one of our Primrose area neighbors was among the victims. Also, a friend of ours from the VFW was victimized at the Ralphs in Arcadia. When he went to report the crime, there were five other victims in line! He lost $600!

Word from MPD is to be careful when using ATMs, and look carefully at the machine before you use it. If anything looks awry, don't do it!

Frank & Renee

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Streetlight information - neighbor input needed.

The subject of increased street lighting came up in our first Neighborhood Watch Meeting and again in a comment on a blog post here. A little confusion arose from whether we are on the City light grid or that of Edison. I did get it confirmed and with the help of Councilman Tom Adams got some answers to help with our decision process.

Not only would locations be a concern if new poles need to be put in to get additional lights up on the street, but we would need to bear the cost as well. How much depends on how much needs to be done to increase the lighting. The information courtesy of Mr Adams from our email conversations:

If a neighborhood is requesting street lights there are a few things we need to know if they are in the Edison service area or the City's service area we do have a Street light map indicating the service areas and we would need at least 67 % of that block to agree to the new lights.

If they are in Edison's service area and there are existing telephone poles on the street side it is just a matter of requesting new lights from Edison and it should take about three months to install. Edison would charge the City the monthly service charge of about $12.00 per light. If there are no telephone poles it may take 6 months or so.

If there in the City's service area it would cost approximately $7,000 per light, we would set up an assessment district to cover the installation cost.

The third option could be to install solar street lights for about $8 to $10 thousand dollars per light remember there would be No monthly electrical cost. Again these are all hypothetical scenarios; there are other options and cost associated with this type of request.
If you think enough of your neighbors are interested we can drill this down to some factual numbers.

I told Mr Adams that we'd get an answer back to him next week. The costs will be born by us.

The street lights will brighten up the area and make it more difficult for the petty prowlers scoping out the neighborhood after dark which could help prevent the rash of auto burglary we experienced last spring, and the tagging only a couple of months ago.

The negative side that has been mentioned is that it will diminish the more rural feeling of the street.

The question put forth is do we want hard information to explore this further? If so once we get hard numbers we'd have to put forth a petition or similar document with 67% approval of the homeowners on the street.

Please let Frank and Renee know by early next week your thoughts so we can let Mr Adams know our decision.

Finally...a big thanks to Mr Adams in his help in getting this going for us.

Frank & Renee