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

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

The hawk chicks are out hunting

Both of the Hawk chicks are out of the nest and learning to hunt. So far it has been small lizards.

The parents left the remnants of a parrot in the Zgonc bird bath to soften. As in years past before the chicks learn to hunt bigger prey the parents make a kill and let it soften someplace before delivering it to the chicks to pick apart and eat. So much for our native species getting pushed out of the neighborhood.

So far the chicks hunting routine seems to be centered in the Zgonc to Chan yards. The entire family is out fairly each morning. The parents seem to spend a lot of time in the pines on Canyone watching the chicks learn to fly etc., on our street. The entire clan gets together later afternoon at Roberto's house. Sometime around dusk they return to their nest.

Baby Hawks are out of the nest today.

The big discovery this morning is that the pair of nesting Hawks that have visited us the last 7 years has 2 chicks again this year. Also this morning the first of the chicks made it first tentative flight out and was in the corner of my gardens. The father was near the nest watching us. The mother was swooping about hunting and watching as well.

If the schedule follows the last few years in about 4 weeks the chicks will be hunting on their own with the parents leaving a week or so later.

With 4 hawks hunting we should some good action in the next few weeks. It is always interesting to watch them learn to hunt. The feeding, well that is only for the strong stomachs. Any guesses how soon we see them yank a parrot or raven out of the sky and feed?

Taggers punk our neighborhood

Sadly our neighbors closer to Foothill got tagged in the wee hours Saturday morning. MPD was called and assured the owner of the worst hit property the city would be by to remove it. (If the city can't clean it up soon we will. Frank, Mike and Joey visited with her and let her know we would clean it up for her if the city lets this go too much further). We may not be a "map" neighborhood but we deserve to be graffiti free as well!

Renee has a call into MPD to talk with the officer who took the report. She will find out if possible if we know which gang did it and what to watch for in the future to help prevent future incidents.

Karen who used to live on the street was by with Adrian on Sunday. As a little refresher she works for MUSD as a child psyche and is involved with at risk kids in our schools. She saw the graffiti and let Renee know that it was not a Monrovia gang. We don't know which gang it is, and we don't know if we should be reassured by it being "outsiders" or not.

As always if you see something going on call it in. If you see some up here that shouldn't be and they are some place where an outsider shouldn't be, call 911 as well. MPD needs our help to keep crime off our street.

MPD UPDATE

I am sure that you all received the Monrovia Police Department Watch Cap Newsletter last week. In case you did not I thought I would re-cap some of the highlights as part of our neighborhood watch ongoing updates.

The Chief of Police Roger Johnson urges Monrovia residents to act in the concept of community policing. He stresses that the police cannot eliminate the gang influences alone and the community as a whole needs to step up. Johnson states “It will require the collaborative work of government, law enforcement, business, schools, faith based organizations, and community members to be successful in eliminating gangs in our neighborhoods”.

The newsletter goes on to talk about graffiti. There are different types of graffiti, the taggers who believe they are creating art and the gang members who use graffiti to mark their territory or neighborhood in a city. The city of Monrovia removes or paints over all graffiti once it is discovered. If it is gang related it is photographed and passed to the Special Enforcement Team who helps identify the gangs and members. In addition the information is shared with local police agencies to raise awareness.

For those of you who did not write it all down at our neighborhood watch meeting the newsletter outlined the three common gangs we deal with in Monrovia:
· Monrovia Nuevo Vario- Hispanic Gang
· Duarte Eastside- Hispanic Gang
· Duroc Crips- Black Gang

All gangs spell trouble; please contact the police if you see any graffiti or tagging marked in our neighborhood with:
· The gang names, initials or symbol
· Nicknames of members
· Threats to rival gangs

The police suggest forming a neighborhood watch (already done!) to keep this type of activity out of our city. They remind us that criminals love darkness, (which our street is really dark at night), and whenever possible keep areas lighted to discourage criminal activity.
I hope this update is helpful if you did not get the newsletter.
Keep it safe,
Renee (and frank who pasted this in from her email)

How did we sleep through this one folks?

This was in this weeks City Manager Report. I had gotten a tip regarding the officer injury and posted it on the FCBlog. My tipster didn't tell me however that it took place right under our noses and slept through it all.

"Possession of a Dangerous Weapon. On May 22 at 1:41 a.m., Officers contacted a male subject who was riding a motorized scooter on the wrong side of the street in the 200 block of Poinsettia. The subject advised the officers that he had a knife in his possession. The officers removed the knife and saw that it was a home made dagger, which possession of is a violation of 12020(a)PC.

The suspect was arrested and transported to the Monrovia Police Department jail for booking. He refused to allow the officers to remove his shoes and jewelry during the booking process. He then became combative when the officers attempted to remove the items from the suspect. During the altercation, one officer sustained a fractured right hand. The suspect was treated by the paramedics for minor scratches and complaint of pain to his neck and checked out at the hospital."

I had heard one of our neighbors was involved from a source in the District Court downtown. Shane did some digging and found some information regarding the incident at LASD.Org under the inmate locator tab. In fact one of our neighbors with a long criminal history has been arrested in the incident released from jail late 5/27/08. (Name being withheld pending final disposition of his case).

Enjoy the Holiday!

A little something dedicated to Monrovians who have given their life in for our country. Courtesy of Cyrus Kemp at Monrovia City Watch.

strange stuff...when you see it call MPD

I got this email and am sharing with all of you. When you see stuff like this call MPD asap. They will respond and certainly those who don't belong here snooping will stop when they know MPD will show up and at least conduct a field interview.

Thanks for sharing the email(s) so everyone can be aware of what is being observed. The message:
"Hello Frank & Renee,
I wanted to send you a piece of an e-mail that Debby & Brian Baird sent me. Thought you might want to hear about this info & maybe we can pass this on to the neighborhood watch group. I only have a few e-mails so I was hopeing you could send the descriptions of what they have seen. I highlighted their letter in red. Thanks, Stace

I have also been meaning to touch base regarding the neighborhood watch. A couple of weeks ago, I was home and could have sworn that the Fed Ex guy jiggled the door handle as he delivered a package. He was a young blond guy. Well I dismissed it and figured it was my imagination, but Michele said that you had a similar experience. Was it the same guy? Also, We have had some guys looking in vehicles lately--according to Michele and Dave--we haven't seen it but they have. Do you know if anyone else has seen anything suspicious. One occaision Dave saw a guy in a grey van get out and look in Bree's car (yesterday) and then Thursday, Michele saw a long haired guy looking in Tyler's truck, an orange tree trimmer truck was parked near him.

Lot of Rumble and Roar...Classic Car Cruise returns

After being absent for a few years, Classic Car Cruise has returned to Monrovia.

For those of you who remember when Fat Burger was around on Foothill they had the guys hosting a Friday Night Cruise that was a lot of fun. More than a few from the neighborhood showed up with our classics. When Fat Burger left it moved to Fudd Ruckers, then over to Robin's then finally it sort of went.

It's back. Mark your calender for the First and Third Saturday of each month. It is being held at the Monrovia Rail Station Park and Ride lot from 4M to 8PM.

The car pictured is our own Dave Chick's AMX that has been beautifully restored. In fact he managed to get the guys from the AMX club to show up and there were 4 AMX total there this weekend. Back in the day this was a small number production car and I doubt you would have ever had that many on a dealers lot at one time. Quite the car and a remarkable piece of automotive history parked up here on Poinsettia.