By Heather Graves
Correspondent
GREEN BAY – Western Avenue between Taylor and Oneida Streets has received a lot of attention recently – and not for good reasons.
The April 7 stabbing of a police K-9, Pyro, in the 1300 block of Western and an April 26 incident where a 46-year-old man died in police custody after a Taser was used on him near Colburn Park are two examples.
These high-profile crimes, coupled with the area’s high volume of police calls, sparked District 8 Alderman Chris Wery to ask for a neighborhood crime study for the area.
That study is completed and was discussed at the Monday, July 8, Protection and Policy Committee meeting.
The report showed an increase in police calls to the area for four straight years with a slight decline last year.
Lt. Steve Mahoney of the Green Bay Police Department said he understands when there is high call volume in an area, it’s going to cause concern.
“We realize that when neighbors see that, it’s alarming,” Mahoney said.
Mahoney said the department has already started taking steps to tackle the problems in the neighborhood and the knowledge gathered from the study can only aid it in its work.
“We are doing numerous things to address the issue of crime and the problems in that general area,” he said. “I can’t get into specifics, but it is something that we are working on with property owners and residents in that neighborhood to work together to reduce crime and calls for service over there.”
Several of the properties along Western are owned by one Milwaukee-area couple.
Mahoney said these property owners, as well as others in the area, have met with police, seen the report and are willing to help.
“If they are willing to work with us and let us alleviate the problems, alleviate the crime, make the area a nicer place, we want to work with them instead of always issuing citations or billing them for our services,” Mahoney said.
Colburn Park has also caused some concern for neighbors and police.
“We’ve had some homeless people in the park, some drug usage in the park, intoxicated people in the park, issues like that in the park after hours,” Mahoney said.
Police are working to alleviate these issues as well.
“We are instructing officers to make their presence in the park known,” he said.
The efforts don’t stop there.
Police are working with the Department of Public Works to fix the non-working street lights in the park, Mahoney said.
There has been discussion about possibly installing cameras in Colburn Park, and once it’s out of the shop, the Armadillo – the department’s armored video response vehicle – will be stationed in the parking lot.
“So if we are seeing activity going on we’ll be able to monitor it on camera,” Mahoney said.
Police said they will continue to work with neighbors throughout the area to make sure concerns are being addressed.
Police plan to meet with property owners and neighborhood associations at the end of the summer to see if the new strategies are working.
“We are seeing various things, hoping they are working, seeing what has more effectiveness,” Mahoney said.