I’m writing in response to Bob Unger’s Sunday 6-28-09 editorial and Karen Zegarowski kudos to you both for identifying the only real hope this community has.
It’s COMMUNITY.  Community is the key to our salvation. As a leader of the ward 3 community group, Mt. Pleasant Street Neighborhood Association, I can tell you our membership is strong both in commitment and will. We’ve been working at talking to one another, communicating our concerns to the police and city officials where ever necessary.
It is our responsibility as tax payers to stay involved and provide the oversight for our own well being. Neighborhoods will be safer if we all keep our eyes open and record and report unsettling events at community meetings like those that Neighborhoods United provides or even just by calling the police more often.
It isn’t my place to discuss what may have led to the disintegration of respect for others, respect for life, or the lack of public will to hold people accountable, including our politicians, but I will say that it’s my own personal mission to see that I do all I can to make a difference in whatever way I can. I suggest that the people of New Bedford heed the words of Bob Unger and mimic the actions of Karen Zegarowski and get involved. Watch your own neighborhoods’, clean up the trash from your streets, and report the “nuisance” violations and obvious crimes you witness day in and day out. It is time to take back our streets and improve our own quality of life. It’s obviously not going to be done with false political mantras, overzealous candidates or promises of pie in the sky economic development. It is the people and only the people who hold the key to real “change”.
Improve quality of life, get involved in your community groups and be your own Citizens Quality of Life Enforcement Officers!