UCR Students Reeking Havoc In The Neighborhood.
Time Capsule Revisited
Back about ten years ago, the City and UCR put together a task force that looked at ways to alleviate the problem which wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now and looking proactively at the planned student expansion. (See UCR Long Range Development Plan).
Alex Tortes (RPD) and the chief of UCR police, some beat officers from both of those organizations, our code enforcement manager, UCR Student Life and Living (I think it was called) and some other UCR people met regularly for months.
Lots of heavy lifting in putting research together about what other UCs were doing for good neighbor polices was don. UC Davis had a good neighbor program.
A plan was put together that included students (maybe they were in fraternities or sororities only?) signing a good neighbor policy as part of their admission which detailed the consequences of not adhering to city codes.
It was written in a way that was educational rather than being nasty, sort of a did-you-know sort of approach since many of the kids had never lived away from home and didn’t know that you couldn’t put a couch on the front lawn….
A brochure was put together (today it would be electronic stuff, social media) which included what you need to know about living in a neighborhood like the noise ordinance, etc.
It also suggested you go around and introduce yourself to your neighbors, pretty much required that you give notification of parties within a time period like 48 hours or something, etc.
There was a video produced that was shown as students were in line at the registrar, etc. Sort of old school stuff. Of course, I think the whole thing went south or was shelved because of the difficulty in enforcing students not complying
There were “penalties” like not accepting your enrollment paperwork at the start of a quarter if you hadn’t done x,y,z to fix any issues.
See: Push Back In University Community
Potential Approaches For Developing Strategies And Political Capitol
We’ve begun to gather examples from other university communities that have solved these problems. There is a mix of confidence and cynicism in the neighborhood. The key take away is that this conversation is once again alive. I guess this is what it looks like when it’s working. Let’s hope so.