Marion concerned citizens planning town hall meeting

Marion concerned citizens planning town hall meeting

Residents will have the opportunity to weigh in on issues, receive home safety information

news@theeveningtimes.com

A rash of daylight home burglars have the attention of Marion residents. In a short hour after school let out Wednesday afternoon two residential burglaries were reported over the police scanner. Both homes were left with back doors standing open, one on Shiloh and the other on North Prairie. Recently 40 people attended a neighborwatching- neighbor organizational meeting. That group has grown to more 100 people connected to police chief Gary Kelley by text message and boasted at least one home burglary nab through communication with police during its first few weeks of neighborhood teamwork.

Crye-Leike Realtors caught the pulse of community concern and have put together another initiative, a town hall meeting on safety for Marion residents. “We will have information people need and can use,” said real estate agent and Crittenden County Quorum Court Justice of the Peace Lisa O’Neal. “Citizens will hear how to be proactive in keeping safe.”

One concern in Marion are street lights that have been out of service. Entergy bills the city for street light service whether the light shines or not. For safety’s sake, O’Neal wanted see more lights repaired and in service as soon as possible. She shared an early word before the town hall meeting about how to get the street light near you back in service.

“Anyone can report a street light outage by searching the Internet with the key words ‘Entergy Arkansas report street lights out,’” said O’Neal.

A secure form is just a click away to report the outage and request repair to any street light in the city.

[Editor’s Note: The actual link is: https://secure.entergy. com/forms/Street-Lights.aspx?FormId=28& R egionId=AR] Marion Police Detective Lt. Freddy Williams will bring personal and home safety tips to light at the town hall meeting. Practical ideas to harden your home to discourage prowlers will be presented too.

Jerry Kelley with code enforcement will talk about fencing residential property and the permit process.

The town hall meeting is open to the public and has been scheduled for the Crittenden County Courthouse on Tuesday, Feb. 20 at 6 p.m.

By John Rech