City of Riverside, California Ward 1 Update

Mike Gardner City Council Member - Ward 1 mgardner@riversideca.gov Office: 826-5991 Cell: 941-7084

Greetings!

 

The City Council has recently established a team and process for dealing with quality of life issues in the city.  Called Ward Action Teams, they meet monthly to discuss and prioritize issues needing attention in each of the seven wards.  The teams include the Councilmember, the City Manager’s Office, the City Attorney’s Office, the Police Department, the Fire Department, Code Enforcement, the Homeless Outreach Team, Parks, Recreation and Community Services, Planning, Building and Safety, Public Works, Public Utilities, and a representative of the District Attorney’s Office.  The Ward Action Team meetings are not public, but I am very interested in input from individual constituents and groups regarding priorities and issues we should address. 

Priorities are reevaluated monthly and will change as problems are solved and new ones arise.  The first Ward 1 Ward Action Team meeting was held April 13.  The following issues were identified based on what I hear from constituents and what team members see and hear about issues in the Ward.  The list is not intended to be all inclusive, it just identifies the top priorities at the moment.  There is no particular order of the priorities, each of the issues is important. 

 

• Homeless and street people issues including  Loitering, Encampments, Panhandling, Inappropriate Behavior
• Property Crimes including, Theft, Home and Vehicle Burglary, Trespassing, etc.
• Problem Properties including Illegal Boarding Houses,  Drug Houses, Grow Houses, Illegal Dispensaries, Grossly Unmaintained Properties, etc.
• Parks: Illegal Use After Hours, Noise, Maintenance, Trash, Illegal Vendors
• Perception of Crime in the Downtown, Drinking in Garages, Safety in Garages, Need to counteract social media portrayal of Riverside, and downtown in particular, as dangerous and not a safe place to be
• Relocation of the Recycling Center at Maxi Foods

 

Please let me know what you think of this list, what should be added, and if there are things that should not be included.  Remember, this is a dynamic list; things will come and go as progress is made and new issues are identified.  We do need to keep the list to half a dozen or so broad issues at a time so the team is not spread too thin.  It is particularly helpful if you can identify problem properties in your neighborhood.  This will be a permanent category, but the individual properties will change over time.

 

Best,

Mike