Traffic and Safety – Be a Good Host, Lock it or Loose It

Be a good Host: Last month 165 vehicles were cited for parking in our community without either a bar code affixed or valid guest pass clearly displayed. It might be speculated that in many cases the driver of the vehicle was likely properly in the community, but simply did not want to undergo the hassle of displaying a current pass or renewing an old one. Starting this month, these vehicles will become subject to being impounded. To recover a car from an impound lot is relatively expensive, and truly does not financially benefit anyone living here. Along a similar line, guest vehicles that are parked in designed resident parking slots down at the Bluff are regularly being cited and impounded. Finding out that one’s car has been subjected to impound is a pretty negative experience that may be avoided if we as residents take a quick moment to remind our guests to simply lock their parked cars and display their valid guest pass. Of course, if they go to the Bluff, remind them that guests have to park on the top tier.

Lock it or Lose it: Late at night there is a thief or thieves that occasionally walk about in our community. Their target is almost always an unlocked car or truck, and they rifle through it taking whatever might be of value to them. During the past month we had at least four such incidents that were reported. In the past couple of months the thieves have taken a substantial amount of loot in addition to the contents of two wallets that had been trustingly left inside vehicles. I suspect that we have more victims than anyone realizes. In these unreported cases, the stolen property was probably relatively small and/or it was so incidental the victims did not even notice it missing. What appears to be a bit unusual is that thieves that are capering here are opportunists and only enter unlocked vehicles. Avoid being a victim and don’t leave items of value in your cars, and no matter what, lock ’em up when we park them. Should we fall victim to a crime, we must report it to our police department. The matter may not ever be resolved to our satisfaction, but it will ensure that our community is allocated a proper share of police resources. God Bless.

β€” Tim Murphy

 

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